Luis Rojo de Castro and Begoña Fernández-Shaw Zulueta have been awarded by the Official College of Architects of Madrid with the first COAM prize and the 2019 Luís M. Mansilla prize for the renovation of Lecture Hall B of the Founders Room at the Runnymede College Campus in the town of Alcobendas, on the outskirts of Madrid, Spain.

Runnymede College is a leading private British school in Spain where the fundamental idea is to impart an academically excellent and comprehensive education, ranging from two to eighteen years.

The studio Rojo/Fernández-Shaw Arquitectos has been able to interpret its academic philosophy, transferring it to the architectural field where students will enjoy attractive and interesting spaces.
The renovation of the Runnymede Campus projected by Rojo/Fernández-Shaw Architects, represents a different approach in the academic field. An attractive place where students can enjoy the facilities while learning and developing.

The architects propose a space that dialogues, which allows it to satisfy the needs of both students and teachers. Permeability and materiality will be another fundamental aspect of the development of the project. The verticality of the cladding slats stands in sharp contrast to the horizontality of the different prismatic volumes, showing an important visual richness in the architectural language.
 

Description of project by Rojo/Fernández-Shaw Arquitectos

The Official College of Architects of Madrid has awarded the First COAM Prize and the Luís M. Mansilla Prize 2019 to the architects Luis Rojo de Castro and Begoña Fernández-Shaw Zulueta, for the renovation of AULARIO B FOUNDER'S HALL at the RUNNYMEDE COLLEGE CAMPUS located in the Madrid town of La Moraleja, Alcobendas (Madrid).

“The Founder's Hall / Aulario B, built on three floors from an existing structure and which houses the Classrooms, Laboratories, and Study rooms, takes as a starting point, for reasons of sustainability, the conservation and reuse of a structure that is enlarged by means of a system of light steel trusses that allows the dimensions to be expanded, space opened and natural light introduced inside.”

“Depending on the point of view, the orientation or the time of day, the light and the weather conditions, the volume solidifies at its edges or dissolves. Open and closed, solid and light, opaque and transparent.”

Rojo/Fernández-Shaw Architectos

MOLD, MODULE, SERIES, AND SYSTEM

CERAMICS, A WORKING PROCESS

A CAMPUS revolves around the collective exterior space, central but shapeless, open, and continuous. And, around it, the architecture disperses and dissolves into a set of pavilions and green spaces. An open environment, alien to the rigid order of geometry or alignments, to build the environment of a Campus of knowledge, of an academic space in which order and freedom coexist.

In the Project, new pavilions coexist with renovations that take advantage of existing structures, some built with a new plant and others as extensions and modifications of buildings in use. For this reason, the palette of materials used in the set is intentionally reduced and strategic to provide order and unity.

Each material characterizes a particular environment. Inside, wood, resin, and glass in their different states of transparency give warmth and color to space; On the outside, the glazed ceramic and the corrugated and perforated galvanized sheet introduce the material, texture, and color coherence that link the pieces and pavilions.

In the search for a material with the capacity for adaptation and modular, formal adaptation and in its finish, we have found in vitrified ceramics an extraordinary architectural resource. Due to its flexibility in its formal configuration, its material quality, and its multiple surface qualities, ceramic is the element that accompanies and unifies each need on the Campus, and its presence gives identity and character to the whole.

Under the concept of MOLD / MODULE / SERIES / SYSTEM, we have developed a series of ceramic pieces from a first MOLD, a 7 cm hollow circular tube. diameter. Initially conceived as a free-standing element, capable of forming various lattice surfaces with multiple variations in density and possible modulation, this element is transformed into a MODULE from which other pieces are configured to form a SERIES or SYSTEM, the result of a study of variations dimensional and 2/2 to give a coherent and integrated response to each project need and which originate from the geometry and modulation of the circle of the initial MOLD.

Tube of 7 cm. in diameter by 70 cm. height, made to measure in glazed ceramic, serves as the basis for establishing a common modulation to the entire campus and for designing a working system in which the same piece inspires both an opaque wall and a latticework.

In Building 1, these tubes are hung as a façade thanks to a metallic inner sleeve, establishing a rhythm that adapts to the needs of privacy or transparency. Each tube acquires the total height of the building (3.50 m), standing 12 cm. in front of a glass facade, which it protects and qualifies.

In Building B, the same cylinder acquires the configuration of a surface, forming pieces of 6 modules or waves that line the facades. Establishing a geometric harmony and a modular and dimensional continuity with the corrugated galvanized facade sheet, with which it shares the dimension of the wave. The brightness of the ceramic and that of the galvanized sheet merge into a dimensional and geometric unit, which response to the search for unity and coherence described.

And in the interiors, the ceramic surface flattens its wave without modifying the modulation to create walls of great material and superficial quality, suitable for use in public and collective spaces, such as dining rooms, multipurpose rooms, and lobbies.

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Architects
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Design team
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María Begoña Fernández-Shaw Zulueta, Luis Rojo de Castro.
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Client
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Dates
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Contest.- November 2016. Draft project.- February 2017. Phase 1 Lobby and Multipurpose Room.- July 2017 - September 2017. Phase 2 Senior School Classroom.- February 2018 - November 2018.
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Location
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Salvia 40 St., La Moraleja, Alcobendas, Madrid, Spain.
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Photography
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Rojo / Fernández-Shaw arquitectos is an architecture firm based in Madrid, Spain, founded in partnership by the architects María Begoña Fernández-Shaw Zulueta and Luis Rojo de Castro in 1994.

The firm has oriented its practice to the design and construction of public works, architectural competitions and academic research. They have been awarded in several architecture competitions, like the Auditorium in Guadalajara, the Centre for the Arts in Alicante, the Industrial Research Laboratories in Arnedo, a Sports Centre in Alcazar de San Juan, or a Public Housing Project in Ciudad Real. Their work has been published in a number of professional journals, among which stand Revista Arquitectura, AV, On Design, Tectónica, Detail, L'Industria de la Construzione, Space, Summa, On Arquitectura and others, and it has also been selected for the Spanish Architecture Bienale, the Biennale di Venezia and the FAD prize.

They are currently involved in the construction of the new Faculty of Sciences for the UNED University in Las Rozas, Madrid, as well as the International Center for Economic and Social Studies in Majadahonda, Madrid. They have recently completed the Sports Center of Alcazar de San Juan, Ciudad Real. Their entry for the Competition of a New Covered Swimming-pool in Saint-Prex, Switzerland, was awarded in 2015, as well as a proposal of a New Campus for the Runnymede College, Madrid, in 2016 and currently under construction.

Begoña Fernández-Shaw obtained a degree in architecture from the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid en 1987 and a Master in Architecture from Cornell University, Ithaca, NY. In 2001 she was appointed Adjunct Secretary to EUROPAN/Spain.

Luis Rojo de Castro graduated from the Higher Technical School of Architecture of Madrid in 1987, beginning his academic work as a professor in the Department of Architectural Projects of this School in 1992. He is currently a Professor of Projects. Luis Rojo is PhD in Architecture from the Polytechnic University of Madrid, where he read the thesis "Obsessive Metaphors and Ideograms in Le Corbusier's architecture."

Having received the Fulbright Scholarship in 1987, he obtained a Master in Architecture at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University in 1989. Rojo has been Visiting Professor in the Core Program of the Department of Architecture of the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University between 1994 and 1998, teaching Option Studios in Architecture in 2002, 2006 and 2011, between 1999 and 2012 Visiting Professor in the Department of Theory and History of the School of Architecture of the University of Navarra; in 2016 he Visiting Professor of Architecture at the City College of New York and in 2019 at the Department of Architecture, China Academy of Arts. Rojo has been co-editor of CIRCO COOP magazine since its founding in 1992.

As a result of his professional and academic research, the works of Rojo / Fernández-Shaw have been published in professional magazines such as A + U, El Croquis, Cassabella, Rassegna, Tectónica, Revista Arquitectura, CIRCO, Arquitectura Ibérica, AV, Space, On Design, Detail, etc. They have given lectures on their work at the Harvard School of Design Cambridge MASS, the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Navarra, the Universitat Politécnica de Catalunya, the School of Architecture at the University of Illinois Chicago ILL, the Leibniz Universität Hannover School of Architecture, the Escuela of Architecture of the Federal Polytechnic School of Lausanne (EPFL), the BAS School of Architecture at the City College of New York, The Cooper Union (NY), the College of Architecture and Urban Planning of the University of Tonji, Shanghai, the School of Architecture of the China Academy of Arts, the Fachhochshule at Postdam University of Arts and Sciences and the College of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Zhejiang University.
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