SAN PEDRO DEL PINATAR AUDITORIUM. MURCIA. SPAIN

2004

MOSAICS OF LIGHT

The city is growing; the new urbanised sectors continue to occupy ever greater areas of agricultural lands. The place has a suburban physiognomy, the spread of buildings, arising everywhere, pepper the sparsely populated spaces.

The design of the avenue of Mayor José María Tarraga, planned as a great circumvention route in the eastern side of the city, and the design of the port road, that has a west to east orientation, connect the city with the place.

Our proposal has arisen from the understanding of the conference centre auditorium in the place, as a meeting point of people with art and culture, a place for music, theatre, dance, painting and debate. A forum for exhibition, exposition, learning, reflection and dialogue. A pole of attraction, a permanent invitation to visit, a date you cannot miss, an attractive permanence, pleasant, memorable, comfortable and enriching.

Cubic volumes modelled by the activities they house and that spring forth coupled to the scale of the surrounding buildings.

Boxes inserted into the place, open air seats to the north wrapped up in foldable sails, protected by fishing arts, heavenly butterflies… and to the south, access to the public interior spaces that connect the different halls, the restaurant cafeteria, the street. The place ties together the boxes the program has, like crystals of salt over the land. Boxes that are integrated into the landscape, music boxes, theatre boxes, Pandora’s Box.

Boxes that are like ships, at times rocked by the Southern gales and others caressed by the eastern or western winds. They are wind boxes, some leeward and others windward. Boxes of salt, white leather, cured, crystallised, scarred. The sun washes its surface and the white paint in light every day.

Two itineraries: one in the north-south direction and the other east-west. The public interior spaces, the street, the two-level lobby, space integrating all the flows generated by the activities of the proposal. Great skylights in the upper part of this catalytic space let light at its zenith inundate every corner, through the empty areas that visually connect the levels of interior space. Light, water and earth. Vegetation, fountains of water and cascades of light ooze from the borders of this space for staying, for meeting, for communicating.
The southern access to be used at times of influx to the conference auditorium, connected through this interior space integrated with the patio with deck chairs, the amphitheatre, the open air seats and with the rest of the activities.

Eastern and western access to preferentially be used when control of large temporary influxes of people does not need to be controlled, like those generated by the conference centre auditorium. This plan for the public interior spaces, the street, at the times of daily activities for the theatre and dance schools, for music, for painting, the conference halls and meeting rooms, for the exhibition hall, for rehearsals at the theatre, for those from administration.

The theatre box, with a reversible stage and adjustable sides in order to regulate the entrances, houses all the necessary equipment for theatre and opera. The mobile proscenium allows the orchestra pit to be covered and two rows of seats, with 34 additional seats. The deck chair patio with 800 - 834 chairs and a handicapped zone for wheelchairs, through the displaceable partition walls housed at the sides of the hall, which reduces capacity to between 324-358 seats, for events with a lesser inflow of people.

The 401-seat amphitheatre is accessed from the ground floor through the lounge chair patio, as well as from the first floor. The audiovisual and projection hall dominates the auditorium and the conference rooms. Service galleries embrace the sides of the hall, and directly above openings imbue it with zenithal illumination through large sky lights along the perimeter, with adjustable darkening systems.

In the northern part of the reversible stage, there is a polyvalent space – a car park or open air lounge chairs – with 705 movable seats, which are covered with a breathable fabric that protects from the sun but is impermeable to air and water. A cloud of heavenly butterflies.

Mobile panels using wings and the same fabric protect the sides of this zone, and can be folded back into the sides or pulled out, and images are projected onto these panels, announcing the events, exhibitions and activities. Strategically placed and simple humidifiers help regulate the outside temperature. The lighting and sound are controlled in the systems room.

The dressing rooms, changing rooms and toilets are located in boxes down paths to the west, with direct access to the stage and the orchestra pit, the storage area, loading and unloading zones, semi-covered in the area opposite and adjacent to the stage box.

The mixed structure of metal and reinforced concrete, the facades of white textured precast concrete, salt crystals, visual mosaic, the air chambers and insulating materials, stability, air and water proofing and insulation. Double-paned glass with chambers, alternating clear glass, transparent and printed, sieve the light according to needs. Concrete floors of wood and stone. Laminated plaster walls, covered with stone, wood and acoustic panels. Laminated plaster ceilings, metal ceilings, with wood and acoustic panels.

The boxes washed ashore in the sand, the sheets of water and the vegetation melt into the edges of the building, blurring into the public interior spaces, the street.

virtual 
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sketch 
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