Vaumm was responsible for reorganizing the old U-shaped building into a free-standing wooden box that articulates the building's circulations thanks to a staircase and walkways that serve as a corridor, which, added to the opening of the interior to the landscape, transforms the relationship of the building with its surroundings and improves the spatial conditions, which were previously dark and closed.
The project is resolved mainly in a raw way, from brick, with exposed installations and a ceiling made of cellulose. In this way, added to the materiality of the main hall, configured as a vertical wooden box, an industrial but warm space is achieved that is put at the service of the community and its needs.
Agustinak by Vaumm. Photograph by Aitor Estévez.
Project description by Vaumm
The Agustinak business creation centre arose from the reuse of an old religious nursery school and its garden, from which it takes its name. The old building, built through successive extensions, had a very poor construction and a domestic organisation, unsuitable for the scale and functioning of a larger public building. In this sense, all the efforts of the project are directed towards transforming the original building to adapt it in scale, spatiality, structure and operation to a more public, dynamic and polyvalent use than the original nursery school.
The project opens up a forgotten and closed building to the neighbourhood, introducing uses such as the cafeteria and the convent's former garden as public spaces for neighbourhood coexistence. The ground floor, now signified by a wooden skin, is conceived as a meeting place, with a multi-purpose conference room and the main hall of the building.
Functionally, the old U-shaped building is reorganised around a free-standing wooden box, which is transformed into a vertical hall that articulates the building's circulations, thanks to a singular staircase and walkways that act as corridors. The mono-material condition of this space, made entirely of wood, gives it an abstract character that facilitates its adaptation to different functions. This space also opens up forcefully to the garden and the landscape, transforming the relationship of the building with its surroundings and improving the spatial conditions of the interior, which was extremely dark and closed in the original building.
The original facades have been transformed in scale. The original horizontal openings have been transformed vertically by means of steel boxes that resolve the transit between the carpentry and the opaque parts. A black skin of polymer concrete with a slight striping introduces a more neutral and rigorous materiality for a public building, while at the same time giving centre stage to what is happening inside, visible through the large windows.
The interiors have been resolved in a crude way, with just exposed brick, exposed installations and a projected cellulose ceiling that muffles the noise. A factory space for the creation of new companies linked to creation, they will be the ones to finalise the spaces with their needs and daily activity.
In short, the transformation project saves 65% of energy and reduces the CO2 footprint by reusing the original structure, it is a project of reuse; but also of urban recycling by providing the neighbourhood with new meeting spaces, and a public facility open to multiple scenarios.
