Spanish architect Sergio Rojo has recently completed the extensive refurbishment of a building which began to deteriorate at the turn of the 20th century. Serving for many years as a vibrant cultural locus in Logroño (La Rioja), a city in northern Spain, this former theatre has seen its share of neglectful tenants, none of whom demonstrated a true appreciation for either its undeniable tectonic qualities or its promising transformative possibilities.
Category: Architecture & Interior Design
Spanish Architecture: B House by ch+qs arquitectos, Segovia
Location: Berrocal, Segovia, Spain
From the architect. This is a humanized landscape of meadows, walls, ash, streams, a small-scale landscape, minimal, almost domestic, and where absolutely everything has yellow accents. In spring poke all yellow flowers. In the summer, the cereal, harvest, and the Castilian heat are yellow.
Fall only comes here in yellow ash, millions of tiny leaves that die in a lingering and dry yellow. In winter, yellow insists in glowing flashes of yellow lichen on the gray trunks of ash trees. And here the machines are yellow, the signs are yellow, all is yellow.
We bought a meadow in this landscape 15 years ago, and after 12 years of yellow contemplation, we decided to build a house there, a refuge, a piece of landscape as a frame, a small inhabited threshold with two views, east and west.
To the west, a nearby view of rocks, moss, brambles and ancient ash. And to the east, the distant dawn over the yellow mountains. This double view and the body finished the design of the house.
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Calatrava’s Opera House in Valencia and its Façade Problem
The performing arts center and opera house of Valencia was designed by the prominent architect Santiago Calatrava, who also created New York's World Trade Center Transportation Hub, scheduled to open in 2015, as well as many other international projects. His work is known for its airy, curved designs 
that suggest a symbiosis between architecture and sculpture. It has also proven controversial in recent years because of ballooning budgets and technical glitches.
The Palau, which cost 478 million euros to build, opened eight years ago. A recent analysis by the Construction Technology Institute (Aidico) concluded that there is a "generalized failure of the ceramic covering's adherence" on 60 percent of the surface. The Valencian government commissioned this report after a section of the mosaic fell off on December 26, forcing the opera house to shut down and cancel performances.
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Spanish Architecture: Abrante Lookout, Canary Islands
From the architect (Jose Luis Bermejo Martín). On January 2, 2013, a unique work which will become an iconic tourist landmark opened on the island of La Gomera (Canary Islands), the Abrante Lookout, northeast of the island, in the municipality of Agulo. The chosen site is located on top of the Abrante cliff, 620 m above sea level, on the edge of an impressive cliff with a vertical drop of 200 meters, a challenge to the construction of the project, and a challenge to the visitor.
The site presents ideal conditions to locate a lookout in which multiple services are offered, and is a resting place for pedestrians. The peculiarity of this lookout is the seven meter cantilever above the void, with the floor and walls made of structural glass, bound with a metal structure at the top and supported on reinforced concrete beams. It was built on the same site as the previous lookout, where a simple stone wall served as a parapet, giving a greater sense of vertigo.
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Theatre in Vicar, Almería, by Gabriel Verd Arquitectos
From the architect. The project for this theatre is located in Vicar, a typical town in Campo de Dalias in Almeria, occupied by settlers in the Alpujarras in the 60s. It is an unmistakable flat landscape at the foot of the Sierra de Gador, a peculiar extension of plastics, an artificial sea of greenhouses that blends at its boundaries with the real landscape.
The site is a void located between two public buildings: the College, the Town Hall, the Health Center, and the Market. The urban space it conforms is the result of the free way in which each building is located on the site, a space without shape, scattered, arguably residual, unlike the urban layout around it. Establishing a new, friendlier order, under the conditions of this inhospitable place, has been one of the basic intentions of the project.
Thus, given the large size of the site, we designed an organization for the set of buildings that would locate the theatre logically, and generate public spaces available to the public, an occupation that will contribute to a programmatic versatility, allowing flexible use of spaces, rehearsal rooms, patios, exhibition hall-plaza, cafeteria, etc.
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Reflective Aluminum House in Madrid by Fran Silvestre Arquitectos
Spanish design office fran silvestre arquitectos have crafted a house in madrid which simultaneously contrasts and blends with its immediate environment. the moderate proportions and planar nature of ‘aluminum house’ allows the design to unobtrusively occupy the site, which is surrounded by tall trees. clad in highly reflective aluminum, the façade merges with its backdrop, becoming part of the natural landscape.
The ground floor of the project emerges organically from the stone slab, while the upper level is oriented north/south, providing private shaded terraces unseen by neighboring properties. internally, an efficient use of space ensures a compact and accessible program. rooms are connected with a staircase and central atrium which rises through the core of the building, allowing views from the house to open towards the garden at the rear.
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Spanish Architecture: Gorgeous Duplex in La Rioja
Designed with refreshing creativity by N232 Arquitectura, this stylish and modern duplex is all about altering our set perception of design and décor. Nestled in the beautiful region of Arnedo, La Rioja, Spain, the home sports interiors that are clean and contemporary. Yet, look a bit closer and you will see the hints of ingenious design that makes this space so very special. While most traditional houses have the public areas in the lower level and the private quarters on top floor, this duplex penthouse flips over that fundamental notion.
The main entrance to the home presents a staircase which leads the visitor to the social areas on the top level. A cool glass partition marks the entryway in the living area without becoming a visual hindrance. Décor is kept to a minimum with large black walls on one side of the room offering visual contrast. It is the gorgeous use of bright colors that draws your attention instantly.
Resourceful mix of colors like orange and yellow along with a bold green carpet give the space an inimitable aura.
This Spanish duplex offers an inspirational change from the mundane!
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Spanish Architecture: Headquarters Caja de Badajoz by Studio Lamela
Badajoz is a medium-sized Spanish city located in the southern Extremadura autonomous community, next to the Portuguese border. Although Merida is the capital of the community and its touristic reference, Badajoz is the largest, most populated and probably the most relevant city of the region, both in terms of economic health and general basic services. This is mostly due to its historical existence near the border, commercial traditions (the Portuguese used to come here to buy caramels) and geophysical characteristics, such as the Gévora River (the city lies at the point where it connects with the larger Guadiana River).
The Caja Badajoz is an important bank for this proud community. It’s the main savings bank in town and it’s the most relevant economic representation of the inhabitants, who are quite conservative. The main goal of this project was to give a powerful physical expression to that immaterial importance by building the new headquarters of the bank on a plot located in the banks of the aforementioned river, next to the Puente Real Bridge. After a restricted tender back in 2007, the chosen team was the Madrid-based Studio Lamela Architects.
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Social Housing Units in Vitoria-Gasteiz, Basque Country
In Vitoria-Gasteiz, a town in northern Spain, a housing block has created 242 apartments for the socially disadvantaged.
The U-shaped structure is capped on one end with a 21-storey tower. The remaining three sides rise between four and seven stories, creating a gently sloping roof. Since this roof is visible from the tower it was treated as a ‘fifth façade,’ the architects say, meaning it was coated in the same red hue as the exterior-facing walls.
The tower maximizes sunlight onto windows and patios. Inside, bedrooms have been positioned to overlook the central garden, while kitchens face outwards toward surrounding streets.
‘The public area of the house is linked with its urban equivalent,’ says architect Iñaki Garai Zabala of ACXT. ‘The more private one destined for rest is linked with the inner courtyard as a space of peace and quiet.’
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Spanish Architecture: Casa V in La Coruña, by Dosis de Arquitectura
Casa V consists on the rehabilitation, adaptation and expansion of an existing house, located in Oleiros (La Coruña), designed and built in the early 1960’s.
The intention of the project is to make a place where three generations of one same family can enjoy their holiday simultaneously. For that purpose, a new house is made for the two younger generations, which consists on a side wing that articulates itself with the old building on the northeast. The rooftop of this new house serves as a private garden for the pre-existing house as a landscape response to the existing topography. The original house accommodates now the spaces for family and social interaction, as well as the rooms of the first generation. Each family member has its own independence while remaining a part of a single set. A multilayered wall defined by a single construction detail, which serves both as structure and as thermal and environmental overcoat, meanders in order to embrace the multiplicity of events that occur in the house. Spaces are defined by the unfolding of matter in space-time, which topologically adapts itself to what happens inside. The new house is formalized by the continuous flow of a completely neutral wrap – no edges, no color, no texture - and, within this wrapping, life, action, is the protagonist.
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