Las Palmas de GC Architecture, Puzzle Piece, Canary Islands Building

Puzzle Piece Building : Las Palmas de GC

Infant School Building, Canary Islands design by Romera y Ruiz Arquitectos

12 Jun 2012

Puzzle Piece Las Palmas de GC

Infant School La Herradura – landscape, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria

Design: Romera y Ruiz Arquitectos

Location: TM. de Telde, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Balearic Islands, Spain

Puzzle Piece Building, Las Palmas de GC

Photographs: Juan Correa

At the patio of the Infant School ´La Herradura´ a new organic landscape grows against the rigid tipology of the original building, opposed and superimposed. The bright colours and soft shadows gently fill the newly covered patio, turning it into a living landscape. In a similar intent to Villa Mairea the supports vanish and the satinated treatment of the enclosing walls captures the luminous reflections, helping to fragment an impressionist reality formed by spots of colours.

The patio, thus, becomes a scenario for representation, a limitless scenario adequate to the magic of the infant games. Whilst glympes of the outside trees can be seen from the patio, the new roof cover has been permissive only with them and with the clouds, the rest erased from the canvas. – Juan Luis Trillo de Leyva, Professor at the Seville School of Architecture.

Puzzle Piece Las Palmas de Gran Canaria
images : Juan Correa

The brief demanded a cover solution for the existing patio that would generate naturally ventilated shadowed areas and protection from the sun and rain for the infant games. On plan, the organic form encloses the exterior envelope of the direct routes between classes, dining-room and main access.

The result is this sort of puzzle piece that inserts itselft into the old, subtle dialogue by barely touching it, almost floating like a cloud, light flooding the existing walls. Despite the poured 60m³ of reinforced concrete the cover appears light and airy, with a changing slab section of 20cm-30cm.

The cover is suspended from the existing roof structure minimising the number of pillars. The metallic circular pillars of dimension 114mm x 5,4mm, are coloured like a small forest, disappearing against the enclosing walls. The roof slab is suspended from the existing roof structural beams with bolted metallic HEB120 profiles.

The cover changes the character of the space, the result achieves an expressive and unitary vision of the object, allowing to control the solar radiation, light, rainwater and providing intimacy and scale for the infants.

Puzzle Piece Las Palmas de Gran Canaria – Building Information

Lead Architect: Romera y Ruiz Arquitectos, Las Palmas de GC, Spain
Architect: Romera y Ruiz Arquitectos, Spain
Client / Developer: Concejalía de Educación, Ayuntamiento de Telde, Spain
Environmental Engineer: Romera y Ruiz Arquitectos, Spain
Main Contractor: Syocsa Inarsa, S.A., Spain
Structural Engineer: Ventura y Machado Asociados, Spain

Location: Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain, southwest Europe

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Puzzle Piece won the World Architecture Festival 2011 category ‘New and old’
WAF Awards Shortlist 2011

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Buildings / photos for the Puzzle Piece Las Palmas de GC – Infant School La Herradura Building page welcome