Gymnasium, on Court/

The assignment requires the expansion of a municipal gymnasium.

We are on the western edge of Lliçà de Vall; between the agricultural valley of Tenes and the industrial plain of Vallès Oriental.

In the plot, these two different realities stand out. On the one hand, an old prefabricated concrete sports pavilion, a disused concrete track and a set of railings built with galvanized sheets that give the place a marked industrial character. On the other, a small grouping of pine trees on the NE side of the site, a soft sablon ground and a wooded background, reminiscent of the less present wild nature of the place.

The project aims to soften the found artifice. Without undoing the present dichotomy. Taking advantage of the discovery.

Thus arises the idea of exploring wood; as a decarbonized material of the site, the module; as a constructively effective system of the plot and the light; as a natural resource, capable of creating a sustainable and healthy environment.

A prefabricated wooden box is placed on the track, separated by 2m from the existing gymnasium. The gesture generates a new state of comfort, protects the user from the weather and allows new activities, games and experiences in the old place. The action avoids an unnecessary demolition, saves a new construction and reuses an existing infrastructure, putting in crisis, old models of our obsolete industrial past.

On the runway, a recycled wood – linoleum composed of cork flour – cushions, conditions and soundproofs the old floor for the new activity planned.

Around the perimeter of the runway, a forest of prefabricated natural wood pillars and beams frees the floor from the structure, establishing a relationship with the verticality of the adjacent grove and the pre-existing modular systems on the site.

Between the new pillars, a standardized TKH panel blinds the envelope, lightening the vertical and horizontal planes of the construction. When this enclosure is present, it is clad with fire-treated wood, using the oriental Yakisugi technique, to build an inert bark that both disappears from the visual plane and reduces the maintenance cost of the envelope to zero. When the TKH does not exist, a low emissive glass allows a new material relationship with the environment; during the day, a pine forest invades the new construction with its reflections. During the night, a new activity illuminates the city, turning the architecture into transparency.

The new wooden box is joined to the old concrete box by a corridor of light crowned by a folded galvanized sheet. The sheet metal redefines the idea of the boundary of the plot. The light divides and allows the coexistence between the two constructions. It blurs the threshold of the two bodies. It builds an intermediate state. It makes it possible to be between the soft and the hard of the place. It happens throughout the project.

• Study: Agora Architectura
• Authors: Joan Casals Pañella + Jose Luis Cisneros Bardolet
• Agora team: Belén Ramos, Anahita Rahimi Vishteh, Ilham Ed-draoui, Nicco Santana, Ane Rodríguez, Irene Cervera and Sofia Lobianco.
• Structures: Francesc Guash
• Technical Architecture: Josep Rubies
• Model: VORACYS SL (contractor), VIRGIA (wood
• Structure: natural laminated wood
• Pillars 280x100mm
• Beaks 680x100mm
• Viguetas 280x100mm
• Closure: TKH Heraklith 120mm
• Coating: YAKISUGUI charred wood slats 145x28mm
• Properties: 4+4 Guardian Sun / 12 / 3+3 (crystals)
• Lucerne: Fakro Claraboyas
• Shots: Galvanized steel plate
• Cover: EPDM 1,1mm (waterproofing) FIRESTONE
• Perimeters: Recycled gravel from the hearth itself
• Floors: Polished concrete, Linna recycled wood
• Photographs: Adrià Goulà