Cáceres, Spain

Embarcadero Civic Centre and Cultural Building

The Aldea Moret district in Cáceres was built in the middle of the last century for a mining company. Its facilities included a series of industrial buildings and an annexed residential zone for the Rio Tinto company staff. The passage of time has left an obsolete group of pavilions, a railway siding and old houses in an abandoned setting surrounded by an area that is degraded socially and economically.

The conversion process for this area, promoted by the municipality with European funding, has begun with the construction of an ambitious centre with multiple objectives in an attempt to generate cultural spaces with a social and educational content as well as a focus on environmental education. The competition required the transformation of a large concrete industrial pavilion to house a complex programme –hybrid in the literal sense of the word-, given that it includes exhibition areas, meetings halls, a bioclimatic agency, offices for neighbourhood associations, centres for training and new technology, a café, an interactive environmental park and a public library.

The totally different activities hosted by this building will coexist beneath the umbrella of a single space, facilitating communication between all uses in a common interior landscape. A ground-level base floor permits a considerable expansion of the public spaces that are essentially defined for exhibitions, auditorium, café and lecture rooms. A generous ramp descends to the lower level beneath a library-bridge, linked to the upper spaces through large circular openings. Four new, light metal buildings are integrated with the pavilion, generating a sequence in which each volume is distinguished by its use, shape, size and colour.

The project’s environmental sensitivity underlies several decisive decisions. A single metal construction protrudes into the exterior, and forms the reference point and spatial orientation for the whole complex while holding photovoltaic and thermal panels on the pavilion roof, along with the overall decisions on the bioclimatic design, both help to minimise the building’s use of pollution-causing energy.

The former opaque walls of the pavilion are turned into transparent or translucent glass panels shaded from the sun, with ventilation louvers that help to improve the building’s energy system.

A light footbridge crosses the railway line, establishing a physical connection between the new Cultural-Civil Centre and the nearby district, hitherto cut off by the railway track.

The former Embarcadero pavilion will help to revitalize a heavily degraded area, compatibilising the memory of its industrial origins with the radical transformation radical of its architectural spaces.

Europaconcorsi Beta

Embarcadero Civic Centre and Cultural Building