HACIENDA DE LAS FLORES
Tourist resort. Villafranca de los Barros, Spain. Second prize
The new centre of hospitality in Villafranca de los Barros is a dynamic complex which is more like a town than a building; it is a small, protected, comfortable world, a barrio blanco carpeted with thousands of brightly coloured flowers and able to relate with the surrounding countryside, to which it is deeply rooted. The concept for this project comes from the haciendas agricolas in southern Spain, white buildings dotted on the landscape like silent presences firmly anchored to the land. The original volume is divided up, generating a flexible system of smaller volumes which move according to the direction of and the search for light. This arrangement gives rise to a great variety of open spaces, patios and gardens of different sizes, protected from the noise of the traffic. The buildings open out onto each garden through a “flowery façade”. Each module will have a different type of flowering creeper, creating variety in the façades, colours, light and depth of fragrance; each block of rooms (groups of 8) will be given the name of one of these flowers and will create a barrio florido. The idea of basing the building on a fragmented “vernacular type” through an abstract concept, provides a solution to the need to work with elements which are rooted in the landscape, which still speak the silent language of places; we strongly believe that this language has been given a contemporary reworking in our project, without losing any of its intensity or consistency. This enables us to insert architecture into the landscape, producing continuity, complexity and beauty.
