An opening to the landscape. RSGN Dining room extension by Viar Estudio Arquitectura

Description of project by Viar Estudio Arquitectura

This is the expansion of the dining room of the RSGN Golf Club swimming pool.

The growth and future of the Club made necessary the expansion of the facilities of the pool area, specifically the expansion of the dining room, a social space for young people and a sports area with gym and locker rooms. The initial project commissioned in 2019 was changed and adjusted several times until the definitive start of the works in September 2021. It was completed in April 2022.

The extension of the dining room replicates the existing volume and enlarges it, opening towards the superb views to the Northeast, from where the view of the Cantabrian Sea, the town of Plencia and the cliffs of Getxo, with its Flysch formations, is dominated.

The dining room is completed with a large terrace that are placed at the level of the pool, under them the rest of the program.

In front of a magnificent landscape, the building withdraws and disappears. The dining room is then an immaterial glass box and a powerful cover that seems to float. The landscape is the target.


RSGN Dining room extension by Viar Estudio Arquitectura. Photograph by Fernando Alda.

The solution is a simple, rectangular space with a gable roof that folds to save the different solicitations and a protective flight that extends over the terrace. The interior is built with glass and exposed wooden beams, with a virtual ceiling configured with specifically designed lamps made by Gropius Lamps. The wooden structure, with different hierarchies, frees the glass corners. The access to the terrace is also a protagonist; a zigzagging embouchure leads the visitor to the terrace and the horizon of the sea. The plinth extends horizontally to form an open porch at the end.

The prominence of the wood, the large overhangs of the structure or the breaks in the roof (which save the existing trees) derive from the club's previous architecture and seek continuity in a certain way. The white of the stained wood and the unpainted wood play with the "sporty" image of the facility.

The first decisions of the project are basic questions of architecture: attention to the architecture of the place, the efficient construction by freeing the corners, the breaks at the entrance, the idea of filtering, the positioning of the terrace on the horizon, the basic geometry and the horizontality or the terrace that becomes a balcony are some of them. The design is a second derivative.