The structure and spatial organisation of the new building were designed following two agricultural and urban patterns. The structure follows the direction of the partition walls of Roca Llisa street, allowing a visual connection between this street and the back patio. The spatial organisation belongs to the agricultural order. The meeting of these two perpendicular directions conforms to this habitat’s complexity.
Llubi nursery by Aulets + Aixopluc. Photograph by José Hevia.
Llubi nursery by Aulets + Aixopluc. Photograph by José Hevia.
Project description by Aulets + Aixopluc
Llubí is a small town in the interior of Mallorca. One of the initiatives of its consistory so that their mothers and fathers can stay is the construction of a school where the youngest children can begin to discover the world, play and make their friends for life.
In this location, two plots converge the agricultural and the urban. The structure and organization of use within the nursery recognize these two traces perpendicular to each other. The structure follows the direction of the neighbouring party walls, allowing a visual connection between the street and the backyard. The use belongs to the agricultural order.
The meeting of these two directions forms the complexity of this habitat. In addition, the rural character, its rhythms and its spirit of taking advantage of available resources translate into the versatility of the spaces so that they can be used for civic activities in the town, outside school hours, and also on weekends and holidays.
The stone base of the structure captures solar radiation on winter days, heating the interior. Above, a structure of pillars and laminated pine and larch beams, and CLT panels, allows the escoleta to become a large open porch in summer, when the embat, the wind coming from the sea, cools the interior on the hottest days. This collaboration between the thermal inertia of the base and the thermal insulation of the roof, and between Mediterranean stereotomic and tectonic logics, orders and accompanies the light from the interior of the island towards the different spaces of the building.
Cultural and artistic values
Cultural transmission from generation to generation: the escoleta project proposes spaces that encourage and stimulate the discovery of the world by each child, but also offer meeting spaces between parents and between the inhabitants of Llubí. The school becomes a civic centre in the evenings, on weekends and on vacations, facilitating the roots of these families in their ancestral territory, and making newcomers feel welcome in this rural community. Updating the local material and constructive culture: The project is based on a patient understanding of territorial factors (rural fabric), climatic factors (embat), endogenous material resources (marés) and vernacular techniques, to incorporate them into this escoleta, recovering and questioning them at once.
Professional values
Mediterranean tectonics: This project is part of our research into local wood construction techniques in Mediterranean environments. This research is theoretical, updating the ideas of tectonics exposed by Gottfried Semper, and technical, as a necessary part of the application and adaptation of the most common woods in the Mediterranean area to the particularities of current climatic destruction.
