New Cultural Center Madrid, Pozuelo de Alarcón Building, Images, Architect, Spain, Design

New Cultural Center Pozuelo de Alarcón, FÜNDC

NCC Madrid Architecture design by FÜNDC SL Architects, Spain

2 Jun 2011

New Cultural Center Pozuelo de Alarcón

FÜNDC designs a ‘new historical centre’ in Madrid

Car and pedestrian. Vegetation and hard square. Modern and classic. This new urban concept bets for all of the above.

Design: FÜNDC SL

Location: New Cultural Center (NCC) & Padre Vallet square, Pozuelo de Alarcón, Madrid, Spain

FÜNDC, Spanish architecture and urban planning office, just finalized the largest urban intervention of the last decades made on Pozuelo de Alarcón, Madrid: The New Cultural Center (NCC) and the new pedestrian area on and around Padre Vallet square. It establishes itself as the origin of the new network of pedestrian spaces.

The project has a couple of unprecedented design solutions such as ‘mega-tree-pots’ and a transformable hall. The pots allow for the growth of medium-large trees above an underground parking, making possible green areas where usually just hard squares are found.

The hall allows for an use modification on the cultural building program, as it can switch between exhibition promenade and auditorium mode through the manipulation of movable floor decks.

The built size of the intervention, both under and above ground comes near to 20.000 m2 (65.000 sq. ft.). It consists on the urbanization through a new uninterrupted stone pavement, fountains and ‘mega-tree-pots’ around a New Cultural Center building.

The latter is composed of two different architectural typologies, old and new, which work on a symbiotic manner providing traditional and transformable spaces. Under these areas and building a double-deck parking absorbs the vehicle impact working together with underground roads and bus stops, freeing the upper square spaces to pedestrians and bikes.

“This intervention changes the traditional way of understanding new pedestrian areas on built environment as it does not choose between pedestrians or cars but accepts both, re-positioning them.” as explained by architect Cesar Garcia co-author and partner together with Paz Martin of FÜNDC, office originally established in The Netherlands and relocated to Spain.

“No need for road restrictions when you can reposition them underground. No need for lack of parking places as you can multiply them on levels. No need for flat hard public squares when you can grow large trees, necessary for urban comfort on this climate.”

The authors also mention that they would not choose between architectures of the past or the future but accept both. They do not position themselves on an extreme but respect the collective memory and presence of existing buildings in combination with the spatial advantages that more futuristic shapes can provide.

A new hybrid typology is thus generated on which each part conforms a symbiotic whole on present time. “We believe necessary to unify opinions, or at least start a discussion, with the NCC, in between the figures of final user and architect”.

FÜNDC has been awarded in numerous occasions with architecture and urban planning prizes, and has developed other large-scale urban projects in The Netherlands (Amsterdam and Eindhoven) and France (Lille). Other realized work to be emphasized is the R13 building in China, built inside the Park of Architecture of Jinhua City; project curated by Chinese artist Ai Wei Wei and Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron.

FÜNDC currently works on other architectural and urban projects linked to culture, art exhibition designs and book design, having as objective the accomplishment of its acronym FÜNDC = Fusion & Union Needed by Disciplines of Creation, as they understand that any product, “from a book to a city” needs to be created with a multidisciplinary approach through the coordination from start of all technical and artistic fields necessary.

GRAPHICAL INFORMATION DESCRIPTION ACCORDING TO FILE NUMBER:
1. New Cultural Center (NCC). South facade [Photographer: César Gª Guerra © FÜNDC]
2. Urban intervention concept. Original and renewed square on axonometric view. [© FÜNDC]
3. Urban intervention concept profile of original and renewed square. [© FÜNDC]
4. Night view towards urban space and New Cultural Center (NCC). South facade [Photographer: César Gª Guerra © FÜNDC]
5. Historical building interior reconstructed and adapted as exhibition spaces. [Photographer: P. Gil © Ayuntamiento de Pozuelo de Alarcón]
6. Sculpture like volumes of the NCC as new urban icon. [Photographer: César Gª Guerra © FÜNDC]
7. `Two sides of the same coin’: South, East and North views of the NCC – from top down. [Photographer: César Gª Guerra © FÜNDC]
8. ‘Mega-treepot’ concept in elevation and section. Besides allowing large tree growth above built levels they also act on their perimeter as urban furniture, natural ventilation ducts, skylights for the lower levels and artificial lighting fixtures for the square. [© FÜNDC]
9. ‘Mega-treepot’ as skylights. Underground view. Natural light enters the parking. [Photographer: César Gª Guerra © FÜNDC]
10. Detail of urban furniture on the treepots perimeter. [Photographer: Anna Pericas © ESCOFET]
11. Hall 1. Configuration concept. Auditorium or exhibition promenade: movable floor decks extended or retracted. [© FÜNDC]
12. Hall 1. Interior. [Photographer: César Gª Guerra © FÜNDC]
13. Intervention area: joining several areas through a uninterrupted pedestrian paved carpet, with the NCC at its center. [© FÜNDC]
14. Hall 2. Interior. [Photographer: César Gª Guerra © FÜNDC]
15. ‘Mega-treepot’ location on the first underground level. Axonometric view. [© FÜNDC]
16. Cultural program on the building. Axonometric view by level. [© FÜNDC]