Fran Silvestre Arquitectos designed the structure as a single monolithic volume that nestles against the rockface whilst also projecting out towards the shoreline.

Living rooms and bedrooms are contained within the protruding upper storey and offer panoramic views through an entirely glazed facade.

A staircase climbs through and across an exterior wall to connect these rooms with an infinity pool and terrace.

Concrete was used for the entire structure, but the walls were coated in stucco to create the clean white aesthetic.

The architects explain how they always try to design houses around the habits of future residents. "Dialogue is always present, since the work becomes part of the identity of those who inhabit it," they explain. "This dialogue seeks comfort and also utility, and examines the conflicts and joys of daily acts of human life."

Others houses by Fran Silvestre Arquitectos that we've featured include a residence where all the rooms are on show and a wedge-shaped house that thrusts out from a rock face.

See more Spanish houses on Dezeen, including a house with four hovering concrete wings.

Photography is by Diego Opazo, movie is by Alfonso Calza.

Here's a project description from Fran Silvestre Arquitectos:

House on the Cliff
Calpe, Alicante.

We like the virtue of architecture which makes possible constructing a house on air, walking on water...
An abrupt plot of land overlooking the sea, where what is best is to do nothing. It invites to stay.
A piece that respects the land's natural contour is set in it.
Above, a shadow, the house itself, looking calmly at the Mediterranean.
Under the sun, the swimming-pool brings us closer to the sea, it becomes a quiet cove.
In the inflection point, the stairway proposes a evocative path, a garden in the basement...

Due to the steepness of the plot and the desire to contain the house in just one level, a three-dimensional structure of reinforced concrete slabs and screens adapting to the plot's topography was chosen, thus minimizing the earthwork.

This monolithic, stone-anchored structure generates a horizontal platform from the accessing level, where the house itself is located.

The swimming-pool is placed on a lower level, on an already flat area of the site.

The concrete structure is insulated from the outside and then covered by a flexible and smooth white lime stucco.

The rest of materials, walls, pavements, the gravel on the roof... all maintain the same colour, respecting the traditional architecture of the area, emphasizing it and simultaneously underlining the unity of the house.

Architecture: Fran Silvestre Arquitectos
Project team: Fran Silvestre, María José Sáez - Principals in charge
Maria Masià, Adrián Mora, Jordi Martínez José V. Miguel - Collaborating architects

Structural engineer: David Gallardo | UPV
Building engineer: Vicente Ramos, Esperanza Corrales, Javier Delgado

Interior design: ALFARO HOFMANN
Collaborators: Fran Ayala, Ángel Fito
Contractor: Construcciones Alabort

Location: Toix Mascarat, Calpe, Alicante

Site area: 962,84 sq m
Built area: 242,00 sq m

Cost: (P.E.M.) 650.000 euros

Above: lower floor plan - click above for larger image

Above: middle floor plan - click above for larger image

Above: upper floor plan - click above for larger image

Above: roof plan - click above for larger image

Above: cross section one - click above for larger image

Above: cross section two - click above for larger image

Above: cross section three - click above for larger image

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Fran Silvestre Arquitectos appeared first on Dezeen.

Windows and entrance areas are oriented to make the most of the sea views and to create a visual link with the nearby town of Moraira.

In some places the angular projections of the facade protect the interior from the harsh Mediterranean sun, while a series of louvres over the glazed frontage create shade and shifting views of the surroundings.

The folded appearance of the facade and balconies continues inside the auditorium, which features angular ceiling panels and a jutting wall separating the upper stalls.

Also in the Alicante area is a music hall covered in shimmering pearlescent tiles. See all of our stories from Alicante here and more stories about auditoriums here.

Photography is by Juan Rodríguez.

Here's some more information from the architect:

Municipal Auditorium of Teulada

Teulada-Moraira is an unusual urban center. Although it is divided into two separate physical units, Teulada and Moraira, these belong to a single administrative entity.

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Located in Alicante, in a valley that descends from the mountains to the sea, the city takes full advantage of the two realities, earth and sea, which define its environment and serve as visual references.

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As part of a new urban development, the Municipal Auditorium rises in Teulada, the higher part of the city. From this point, and over the valley sprinkled with small white buildings, one can see the town of Moraira by the sea. Such a unique location makes the building work as a link between two urban centers that are physically separated but share territory, landscape, and of course culture.

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This significant location and presence of the new building in the city and the landscape underlies all the essential decisions that have been made with regard to the spatial configuration and formal definition of the proposal. The topographical features and the slopes of the plot have provided the remaining references.

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The design adapts to the natural topography of the plot, making the auditoriums descend towards the southwest and putting the main access areas on the northeast and southeast edges of the site. These accesses are organized and oriented to afford the best views of Moraira and the sea, in the process emphasizing the building’s ‘connective’ role. The halls flanking the main auditorium are particularly important, constituting large vantage points over the sea.

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In configuration and construction they constitute a large space-facade, deep, geometric, and carefully sculpted like a diamond, always taking into account the position of the Mediterranean sun, which in this orientation would otherwise glare down relentlessly. This side facade formally combines all the project guidelines. In carefully carved pieces it contains the cafeteria and restaurant and an exhibition area at a lower level, all of them with views onto the Mediterranean. Like the ceiling, the floor of this ‘huge opening’ folds here and there to evoke the seashore rocks. At night this facade is a backdrop, a lighthouse shining over the paths that join Teulada to Moraira.

situation: Teulada.-Moraira, Alicante, Spain
total area: 5.100 m2
budget: €11.000.000
competition date: 2004. 1º Prize Project Competition
project date: 2004
construction date: 2011
client: Teulada TownHall. Generalitat de Valencia
architect: Francisco Mangado
work direction: Francisco Mangado

collaborators
architecture: Jose Gastaldo, Idoia Alonso, Birte Lattermann, Borja Fernández, Edurne Pradera. Jaime Sepulcre
structural engineers: NB 35 SL (Jesús Jiménez Cañas / Alberto López) Ingenieros
mechanical systems: Iturralde y Sagüés ingenieros
acoustic engineer: Higini Arau Estudi Acustic
lighting consultant: ALS Lighting arquitectos consultores de iluminación (Antón Amann)
quantity surveyors: PA Aparejadores (Luis Pahissa / Fernando Pahissa)
general contractor: Constructora San José SA

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by Francisco Mangado appeared first on Dezeen.

Spanish architects Cor & Asociados have completed a pearlescent music hall in a village near Alicante.

Shimmering porcelain tiles clad the multi-purpose auditorium, which adjoins converted civil guards quarters to comprise the new two-storey music centre.

Staircases encased within glass boxes link the existing U-shaped building to the extension.

The new block encloses a central courtyard for open-air music rehearsals.

Layered screens create overlapping fins on the interior walls of the auditorium, which are backlit in stripes.

Another recent project to feature ceramic tiles was a library with a mosaic rainbow at its centre - see the story here.

Photography is by David Frutos.

The following text was written by Cor & Asociados:

Music Hall and House in Algueña MUCA
Cor & Asociados. Miguel Rodenas + Jesús Olivares

The memory of existing architecture and the opportunity of a new program. Algueña is a small village in the interior of Alicante County, with a population of two thousand and an economy based in agriculture and marble industries.

We were asked for a building able to bring together all the activities related to music and culture that took place in the village, and also promoting its cultural future. We were commissioned to search for an opportunity, articulate it and carry it out. Under these circumstances, that also comprised the definition of an extensive musical schedule of activities and a maximum budget of 562.800 €, we proposed in a first phase the rehabilitation of old Guardia Civil’s quarter that was in disuse since the 80s.

That allowed us to have a surface area of 670 m2 that we only had to adequate, and the construction on a new Auditorium of 350m2 and 230 seats. In a second phase, we proposed the construction of a park with an open-air auditorium that will join the village and its zone of future urban development. The definition of the architectural program is the opportunity in this project.  Sometimes, as in this case, the decisions of the architects have to do more with the “building of an opportunity” and the creation of a dense and appropriate schedule of activities for the village, than strictly with the discipline, the aesthetics, the materiality, the form...

The intervention is located in the west entrance to the village, near from classical local wineries, in a city limit that the new urbanistic plan will develop around this plot. We propose to reserve a green zone beside the building, to develop in second phase an open-air auditorium and a garden with jacarandas, that will have enough entity to separate the new urbanistic development of the existing one, and generating a joining place and giving it ambiental quality. The responsibility in the approach and the impossibility of failing are important parameters in this kind of villages, where the opportunities come rarely, and there’s no possibility of increasing the budget. That’s why it is very important to construct a complex reality linked closely with the village, and auditing the process with all the agents and citizens involved.

Besides, in the plot exits a building of the 60s, an old Guardia Civil quarters, that is in disuse from years and that has a load-bearing wall structure in good state of maintenance. And its shaped in U with an interesting central courtyard for this architectural program. We propose to rehabilitate it for developing that program. The new construction is separated from the old by new adapted stairs that are enclosed in glass boxes lighted from overhead, that try to add fragility to the rotundness of the whole. The multipurpose hall houses 230 seats, these seats are moveable and the installations are able to accommodate different kind of functions, from a concert to a new year’s eve party, that’s why it also houses a warehouse where organize all these elements that allow use change.

The central courtyard is designed to house the rehearsals of the music band in open-air, or any other kind of functions as award giving parties, etc. without any fixed element. Moreover, it’s designed together with the back courtyard, in which we propose to develop another open-air hall. The intervention has a great potential to be used and we propose more for less. In the existing building we propose the rehabilitation without formal changes. Simply recovering all the old constructive techniques and turning them white with different grades of shine with the intention of generating tension between what the users remember about the building and what it is now, we search for surprise perceptions and the generation of a new surface. Instead the new hall is a blind box, a strange element because of its shape and dimensions. To emphasize this sensation we propose a cladding that vibrates and shines with a pearly-iridescent material.

The generation of a “low cost” landmark: vibration and brightness

The generation of this recognizable landmark, architecturally speaking, usually has to do with expensive budgets, amazing materials and sculptured shapes. However, this project generates this landmark with a low cost solution relying on two concepts, one concerns “psychology of perception” and uses vibration and brightness, and the other concerns shape and uses the rotund appearance with proportions similar to its industrial landscape. Brand architecture is used in big cities to offer a recognizable image that can be easily remembered and associated to a city and its values.

Using this kind of marketing at village level has to be reflected, because they only need a building for a determinate program. Here it allows starting sketching a strategy to reactivate the exterior image of the village, and helping strengthen it for the imminent economical change it’s immersed.

The ceramic: pearly and iridescent

The use of a ceramic surfacing with pearly and iridescent finishing responds the intention of generating a vibrant volume in constant change, due to lighting changes o observatory movements, this solution makes the building vibrate, changing its colour, saturation and profundity.

The bet on this material, made “exnovo” for this building, with the use of existing techniques of firing, vitrifying and metals deposition, give this appearance and respond to the necessity of not creating a tectonic or shape solution, but a perceptive one.

This technique is based on a porcelain base material that resists frost and is guaranteed in exterior. Each of these plates is pressed in dry and is fired 3 times: first of them at 950ºC to biscuit it, second to fire the white enamel and vitrifying the biscuit at 1180ºC in rapid cicle, and third that obtains the iridescent-pearly finishing or the metal reflections at 780ºC approximately. The opportunity of the project is the creation of an architectural program audited with the village. For many years music is an important part of the culture in Algueña. This building is the opportunity to bring together in a same space all the activities that are spread through the village.

The program departs form music realm and we lead it to a more indeterminate situation, linked to multipurpose uses.After doing the work of defining the architectural programs, that we developed in multiple meetings with different agents and citizens, the building houses a wide range of activities form music lessons, rehearsals and concerts of the municipal music band, the “rondalla” and choir, lessons and performances of the regional dance group, the “dolçaina and tabalet” group, rock bands, composition workshops and electronic music lessons; to exhibition rooms, conference rooms, assembly rooms, place to hold popular feasts, and even a municipal warehouse.

The music as social enhancer in a village

Music bands are a great valencian tradition because in almost every village and town it exists at least one of these musical groups. The musical quality of these bands is recognized around the world, some of them reaching more than 125 members.

These groups are not only cultural entities but also social, with a high degree of participation in the village that goes far beyond the music and concerns social integration, formation and group work. Algueña’s band is a good example of this. Each event or concert, and even the rehearsals are followed by the people; not only the results (concerts) are appreciated but also the process (rehearsals, auditions, lessons, meetings) are shared. As an example: as they have few cultural events, people assists to weekly rehearsals of the band.

As a result, in the Comunidad Valenciana exists a network of bands and music centers that are the birthplace of internationally prestigious musicians. This encouraged the creation in 1968 of the Musical Societies Federation of the Comunidad Valenciana. Its aim is to promote and spread the love, teaching and practice of music and enhancing associationism and allowing society a mean of cultural development. In Europe, the Comunidad Valenciana is the region where more music bands exist with Austria and Holland.

The historical marc of the building. Working with collective memories.

When you decide to work in an existing building with a profound historical mark, so profound as can be in a Guardia Civil quarter and checkpoint, it’s commonly assumed that one of the challenges of the project will be erasing that historical mark.

To do so we developed with the Art Agency “La Ballena Imantada”, directed by Luisa Martí, a social and artistic event in the building: “60 glances” whose objective was to take 60 artists paint during a day each one of the jambs and lintels of the doors and windows.

We generated a “transcendent social act” that brought together more than 500 people around the building among artists, musicians, spectators, familiars,.. allowing us to show the building while still in construction and start to weave a consensus atmosphere between the citizenship, detaching authorship and leave the building up to its future users.

This work concerning sociology and anthropology is vital in this project to provoke a shift in the collective memories.

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by Cor & Asociados appeared first on Dezeen.

Spanish architects bgstudio have completed this looping bridge that links the historic city of Alicante to the beach, crossing a busy road.

Named Pasarela del Postiguet, the pedestrian bridge has a curved form that is illuminated at night by internal LEDs.

See our earlier story for original renders of the design.

More stories about bridges on Dezeen »

Photography is by Marin Marinovic and Javier Guijarro Tortosa (bgstudio).

Here is some text from bgstudio:

Pasarela del Postiguet – Alicante

“A breeze envelope – contemporary architecture design”

The intervention follows the structure of the existing runway redefining its aesthetic language to give it dynamism and fluidity that transmit the innovative and contemporary character of the city of Alicante.

Thus the union between the castle and the sea becomes a nice envelope curve that varies along its section of the gateway and accentuates the movement of the whole.

A warm gesture of welcome to the Mediterranean.

The shell is made of a translucent material with programmable lighting system using LED technology that is able to vary its hue at night.

The cast soft colours that change with each season, clean profiles reinforce the gateway.

This reflection in theglass on the railing transmits a careful balance between lyricism and technology.

Every night, Alicante bring to the sea a modern streak of light.

Click above for larger image

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Spanish studio Cor have completed this Alicante bar with floors and walls clad in wood.

The upper half of the walls and ceiling are white, imprinted with rows of black dots.

The bar lines one side of the space and seating is on the opposite side.

Photographs are by David Frutos.

Also by Cor: Funeral Home and Garden in Pinoso.

More restaurants and bars on Dezeen »

All our interior stories »
More Spanish architecture on Dezeen »

Here's some more information from Cor:

26 Lounge Bar

The Portal de Elche has been a very popular meeting place in Alicante for centuries, situated at the corner of the Rambla and the Esplanade of Spain the two most important streets of the city. It was an urban space emerged on the occasion of the demolition of the walls that gripped the city.

In this place, was placed the Tower of San Bartolomé and beside it a door that had several names: Portal de Murcia, Portal de Orihuela and, of course, Portal de Elche. At present, it is possibly one of the busiest places in the city center. The proposal of our team was to create a 'commercial and emotional window': a place where looking and being looked beneath the huge ficus on the 'portal', which would generate a stable emotional link that made customers come back.

'From inside you look outside.' An ancient interior wounded by multiple reforms, from a tavern to a shoe store, through a thousand different businesses from s. XIX brought out an uneven volume. Given this situation we propose the construction of a 'controlled interior volume' able to suit lighting, temperature and acoustic sensation.

Built with two faced 'u's: one made of industrial timber that fits on the floor, at the bar and forms the bench going up to 1.8 m height, and another punched 'u' completely white, descending from the ceiling where all facilities (air conditioning and sound) are accommodated. These 'u' are crossed in a weightless way by two adjustable light sets that bathe the room from its center, and try to emphasize and define the interior space, letting perceive 'a box within a very old local'.

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A phenomenological project. The states of light are very important due to temporary uses and change on supplies depending on the time of day. Say it is not an area that changes depending on the time, but rather different premises, where different scenarios are set, almost like a stage. Ground lighting takes all its power at night, diminishing its intensity wallwashers and the two great lamps, getting a room similar to the bistros of W. Allen.

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In contrast, in the morning are the two great lamps that catch the spotlight, making appear clearly defined spatial boundaries, something that reminds the photography of Slawomir Idziak.

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Project Outline

Architecture : COR Consulting of Creative Resources
Client: Private
Location: Alicante, Spain
Principal Use : Cafe, lounge and bar
Floor Area: 110 square meters
Budget: 91.050 €

See also:

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D’espresso by Nemaworkshop	Switch Restaurant by Karim Rashid	Barrio North by Anarchitect

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