Romera y Ruiz Arquitectos, S.L.

El Lasso Community Center

El Lasso Community Center
© Romera y Ruíz Arquitectos

EL LASSO COMMUNITY CENTER

Romera y Ruiz Airquitectos

ARCHITECTS
Romera y Ruiz Arquitectos

AREA
498.0 m²

LOCATION
Las Palmas De Gran Canaria, Spain

CATEGORY
Community Center

YEAR
2010

CONSULTANT
CQ Associated Engineers

PHOTOGRAPHS
Simón García

DEVELOPER
Excmo. Ayuntamiento de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria

COLLABORATOR ARCHITECTS
Jorge Hernández Fernández, Rocío Narbona Flores y Paula Cabrera Fry

DRAFTSWOMAN
Gwendolyn Méndez López

TECHNICAL ARCHITECT
Manuel Hernández Vera

Text description provided by architect.

The architectural project always negotiates with the territory, although sometimes this negotiation comes given to us.

El Lasso Community Center
© Romera y Ruíz Arquitectos
El Lasso Community Center
© Romera y Ruíz Arquitectos

At the Lasso Community Center, a neglected neighborhood of Las Palmas, the existing street and valley topography define a form and space, the project just limits itself to draw limits, to construct the encounter between a garden and a viewpoint towards the sea.

Often the architecture constructed these permissive borders, like the walls raised in valleys to avoid their own erosion. The desire to create a place is always prior to the architectural accomplishment.

El Lasso Community Center
© Romera y Ruíz Arquitectos
El Lasso Community Center
© Romera y Ruíz Arquitectos

The inner garden invents an open collective dominion formed by an enclosing curved wall, the built form and the tree shades.

It becomes the scenario for representation of the communitarian use.

El Lasso Community Center
© Romera y Ruíz Arquitectos
El Lasso Community Center
© Romera y Ruíz Arquitectos

In between the sea-views and the garden, the longitudinal built terrace watches the Atlantic Ocean, acting as a filter of light, spaces, northern breezes and contained views.

Versus time, the alive colors and casted shadows flood the façade that overlooks the sea, turning it into a landscape of polarized light.

The façade turns into an actor rather than a passive element that just stands and shows.

El Lasso Community Center
© Romera y Ruíz Arquitectos
El Lasso Community Center
© Romera y Ruíz Arquitectos

On plan, the built form is a heavy wall on which spaces are carved and oriented to catch snapshots of the exterior.

The building section gently negotiates the sloping topography allowing for two accesses at different levels.

Architecture that almost with the ease of farming becomes content of the territory and incarnation of the Canarian landscape, full of color, dry mud walls, torrents and drains.

El Lasso Community Center
© Romera y Ruíz Arquitectos


El Lasso Community Center
© Romera y Ruíz Arquitectos
El Lasso Community Center
© Romera y Ruíz Arquitectos
El Lasso Community Center
© Romera y Ruíz Arquitectos
El Lasso Community Center
© Romera y Ruíz Arquitectos
El Lasso Community Center
© Romera y Ruíz Arquitectos
El Lasso Community Center
© Romera y Ruíz Arquitectos
El Lasso Community Center
© Romera y Ruíz Arquitectos


El Lasso Community Center
Sketch

El Lasso Community Center
Model


El Lasso Community Center
Elevation
El Lasso Community Center
Elevation


El Lasso Community Center
Ground Floor Plan

El Lasso Community Center
Roof Floor Plan
El Lasso Community Center
Section
El Lasso Community Center
First Floor Plan

Romera y Ruiz Arquitectos, S.L.
T +34 928 368804
Romera y Ruiz Arquitectos, S.L.
C. Ángel Guerra, 14, Local bajo, 35003 Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Las Palmas, Spain