Municipal Youth Space. Memory
The Historic Centre of the city of Avila is particularly notable for its density, for its narrow streets and its small squares. It is these points of empty space rather than the filled spaces which in their interweaving give character and density to the historic city and which also describe its buildings.
Bearing this in mind, the Project for the Municipal Youth Centre looks into the empty spots of the city and of the block lying between the streets of Cardenal Pla y Deniel and Pedro de Lagasca, where the Centre is found. It has strived to give continuity to the dispersed patios, as well as to achieve the best natural lighting solutions on a site whose defining features are its long narrow shape and the necessity to recover and protect its main façade.
The project proposes to provide different settings intermeshed by the natural lights of its patios in this long narrow strip of land. To do this the idea has been to use colour in two metre bands the whole width of the building, both horizontally (the paving) and vertically (interior carpentry and glass work). The colour beckons the visitor in and provides a point of reference for the rooms, the light of the patios turns them into lanterns, the base of which are roof lights which illuminate the exhibition hall and different offices.
A further storey was allowed in addition to those in existence, shaped as a gapped wooden box, and this participates in the play of light and colour. A hall for large events, a library, a teaching room, offices, meeting rooms, an exhibition hall, the youth services department and other lesser uses make up the minimal but exact jigsaw that the lantern patios and the bands of colour weave together.
The condensed materiality of the different coloured and translucent glasses, and the fine grained paving give fluid solidity to the project.