
Young Spanish architects CrystalZoo have designed an extension to the Seu University of La Nucia, an external site of the University of Alicante in La Nucia, Spain.

The two-storey extension wraps around one wing of the existing college building and includes a new reception area and cafeteria.

Photographs by Guillermo Luijk and Crystalzoo Studio.

The following text is from the architects:
–
Seu University of La Nucia.
The building is an external seat of the University of Alicante. It is placed in La Nucia, a small town of the province of Alicante near Benidorm.

The building has a meeting point, internet access, workshops and classrooms. The University uses it for offering courses and information programs in cities or towns that are distant to the Campus.

The site is a neuralgic centre of the social activity of La Nucía; in which different circulations converge (new audience, municipal children school, future residence of students and access to old town), vectors of action, relation and vision that generate their own game board (topology) and the rules that will mark future mutations. This is an unfinished system, able to adapt to future necessities or programs and to lodge the new facilities.

The building simultaneously conserves its identity and breaks its walls to open the interior of the building to the old patio creating dynamic spaces. Those vectors define inner zones that invite to the culture and tranquillity and relate the spaces with other exteriors to favour social interchange and response to the landscape elements.

Our proposal is not designed to resemble his environment. Establishing a dialogue with the old school San Rafael, puts it in value, their architectures are different and speak with the greatest of time.

We raised flexibility as temporary approaches, such as liberalization of the old architectural legacies, as a way of interventionist approach to heritage. In this way, we avoid having dead city, trying to create dynamic environments, with greater capacity to manage the environment in which they are located.
Architect: Jose Luis Campos Rosique
CrystalZoo Studio, Alicante, Spain.














–
Posted by Rose Etherington



September 18th, 2008 at 8:48 am
the plastic ceiling for example from the first picture makes it look like a temporary building, in my eyes: a little bit sleazy.
September 18th, 2008 at 8:57 am
Looks nice!
Does anyone knows the brand of the desks?
Cheers
September 18th, 2008 at 9:41 am
looks good!!!
September 18th, 2008 at 10:05 am
nice form,good interior shots,also the setting chairs.
the floor material i mean the type of the wood and the color tone, is not that much good .
September 18th, 2008 at 10:54 am
nice intervention …
September 18th, 2008 at 12:50 pm
I feel bad looking at those pictures. Everything seems so dated…
September 18th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
wow! real architectural drawings. im convinced. seriously, post more drawings.
September 18th, 2008 at 11:38 pm
plans and sections are hot.
September 19th, 2008 at 12:39 am
does anyone know who first aestheticized the fluorescent tube? it seems so hip these days.
otherwise, this seems a very successful project. the clash of old and new seems great from the exterior.
that coffee cup supergraphic is a bit too much. a kitschy cafeteria.
September 19th, 2008 at 9:11 am
like the combination of wood and plastic… liek the forms and the light situations… like almost everthing in this project… precise drawings and precise detailing in the built result… so there is a link between theses stages and their quality… i’m sure!
September 19th, 2008 at 11:01 am
It’s a school…Think about this.
September 19th, 2008 at 12:11 pm
Wow! Not known this building, and that I am in Alicante. Looks very nice, i will have to make a visit…
September 19th, 2008 at 7:20 pm
great work congratulations!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
September 19th, 2008 at 7:33 pm
Don’t like this… It looks like a bug eating an apple… I generally like the contrast between new/old but not this way. It seems like the old part is going to break anytime, by the pression made by the new on…
Anyway I like interior design….
September 22nd, 2008 at 4:56 pm
would guess dan flavin first “aestheticized the fluorescent tube.”
September 22nd, 2008 at 11:54 pm
aha, dan flavin, of course! thank you
September 24th, 2008 at 4:38 pm
nice, i actually like the translucent ceilings
September 25th, 2008 at 12:10 pm
it’s like as though someone wedged a chunky boomerang through that elegant old structure. im not against contemporary interventions within old/existing edifices but this one has been executed rather clumsily. It is tiring to see the new designers penetrate buildings with their amorphous blobs and geometric blocks without any humility, levelheadedness and sensitivity to its surroundings or context.
September 26th, 2008 at 10:13 am
oddjob: I think, the ceilings are no plastic: they are expanded metal mesh (”streckmetall” in german) panels.