CORNIDO SOCIAL CENTER
The steepest part of the terrain was chosen for this small building, as it had the best orientation. South and estuary. Although it flies and does not touch the ground, it is as high as the slope and thus has double accessibility: at the bottom, from the traditional path, and the top, from the parking space. In spite of its square floor plan and flat roof (cube), certain decisions are brought in that make it more intricate and defining it into parts. A "handle", the staircase, anchors it to the slope. A service unit with the entrance, restroom, kitchen and storeroom form the backdrop and the wall against the terrain. Its only horizontal window, which faces it, the only piece through which to look. Also a table and seat. The roof, a garden terrace with a sunk level for lounging. A small plaza.
The concrete cube inserted into the gradient has two usable surfaces, an interior one, the social center meeting room, at the lowest level; and another upper plane at street level, which is a bench in the midst of a garden with magnificent views of the beach and the estuary.
From the road a gentle ramp leads to the vantage point on the roof, while the main hall is accessed from the lower level of the meadow.
The premises are of small dimension as for the use of the inhabitants of the little village, with a single space in which a unit conceals behind it a kitchen, a cloakroom and a storeroom. This is a place for children’s parties, yoga lessons, ping-pong games, cookery lessons and more.
The building’s compact shape means that its materiality and volume help to achieve natural thermal protection conditions that do not require great demand.
The building has an elongated fixed window facing west with two opaque mobile pieces so that it can be opened for ventilation, as well as a glazed door on the opposite façade.
Light enters from both east and west facades, being able to open also through its south facade connecting, in this case at the same level, interior and exterior through a wooden gate that opens to the countryside.
The woodwork is in cedar wood, and in the case of the west-facing window its elongated design, with the pane behind a protruding wooden frame, provides protection from the afternoon's solar radiation.
The roof is covered in vegetation using local plants from the area. In this case different types of heather have been chosen, an abundant species in this landscape of the Atlantic coast which is fully adapted to the conditions of the environment and also visually forms a continuum with the immediate landscape.
