Vaumm

The way through the Forest

The way through the Forest
© Aitor Ortiz / Aitor Estévez

THE WAY THROUGH THE FOREST

VAUMM

ARCHITECTS
VAUMM

LOCATION
Errenteria, Spain

COUNTRY
Errenteria, Spain

HEALTH AND SAFETY
bategin

CATEGORY
Pedestrian Bridge, Other Structures

PHOTOGRAPHS
Aitor Estévez

STRUCTURAL CALCULATION
Ingeniería Lanchas

YEAR
2017

MANUFACTURERS
Alucoil, Lamp Lighting, Orona Pecres

COMPETITION, PROJECT AND SUPERVISION WORKS
VAUMM arkitektura

PRES BUDGET, QUALITY SUPERVISION AND TECHNICAL ARCHITECT
Julen Rozas Elizalde

CONSTRUCTION
Campezo

BUDGET
1.725.000 €

CLIENT
Ayuntamiento de Errenteria / Errenteriako udala

Text description provided by architect.

There are projects that overlap different scales, despite at first sight seem inconjugable; scales that impact the city but that fasten its architecture in constructive matter.

The way through the Forest
© Aitor Ortiz / Aitor Estévez
The way through the Forest
© Aitor Ortiz / Aitor Estévez
The way through the Forest
© Aitor Ortiz / Aitor Estévez

City is urban form, urban mesh, public and private, even the population who inhabits the city. The aging of the population is an undeniable reality indeed.

In our society, 9 million people are over 65 years old. In 2050, its growth could make reach 15 million, that is, 1 out of 3 citizens could be over 65 years old.

Impacts and effects on health, economy or sociology.. are more than evident, but, how will be the impact on our cities?

The way through the Forest
© Aitor Ortiz / Aitor Estévez
The way through the Forest
© Aitor Ortiz / Aitor Estévez
The way through the Forest
© Aitor Ortiz / Aitor Estévez

Alaberga quartier in Errenteria, Gipuzkoa, was built in the 60s, in full industrial development, to accommodate a large number of people the fastest way possible.

The pitched topography divided the settlement into two different areas: one in the lower level organized around the church, with linear blocks that generate blocks and streets; and another area with disseminated buildings that climb the hillsides, leaving the steepest areas empty.

Nowadays Errenteria has extended to the highest point, surrounding that empty space as an urban green area that divides the township, with a difference of level of more than 40 meters between them.

The way through the Forest
© Aitor Ortiz / Aitor Estévez
The way through the Forest
© Aitor Ortiz / Aitor Estévez

A split town, which can be reconnected for the pedestrians through two urban lifts, which are linking all important levels, intermediate roads, accesses to the Church or close residences.

As well as that of a new path that lets get in a block of 6 portals and 42 flats at the same level of the doorway, without having to climb a narrow and 10-meter stairs to the doorway.

This intervention can only be explained from the urban point of view, as a direct solution to the obsolescent city scheme that was designed in the past for another profile of inhabitant. Nowadays it becomes unacceptable for a large majority of citizens.

The way through the Forest
© Aitor Ortiz / Aitor Estévez
The way through the Forest
© Aitor Ortiz / Aitor Estévez

On the other hand the proposal must be specified and respond to the place where it is located. The project puts the focus and intensity on controlling the perception of these two infrastructures that cross the hillside.

That residual space, given to nature due to its extreme conditions for building, is an urban physical barrier but also a green lung of great value that must be preserved.

An extensive deciduous forest whose appearance radically changes from summer to winter, creating different perceptions of a new place.

The way through the Forest
© Aitor Ortiz / Aitor Estévez
The way through the Forest
© Aitor Ortiz / Aitor Estévez

The faceted planes of both structures and their mirror polished aluminum cladding, claims a direct relationship with that changing environment.

To play with fun with the mechanisms that govern the perception of the spectator supposes for the architects the possibility of organizing a new world of surprises or imbalances that challenges the security of the previous knowledge of the world.

The way through the Forest
© Aitor Ortiz / Aitor Estévez
The way through the Forest
© Aitor Ortiz / Aitor Estévez

In the end, perception is nothing but the way in which our brain interprets the different stimuli it receives through the senses, to form an aware impression of the reality of the context through which we move.

The reflections and overlays of roofs, clouds, branches and leaves become the material itself of towers and footbridges.

omehow the landscape seems to flow, taking possession of the built volume, blurring its boundaries, varying its mass.

The way through the Forest
© Aitor Ortiz / Aitor Estévez
The way through the Forest
© Aitor Ortiz / Aitor Estévez

We don´t know for sure la if the landscape has reabsorbed the architecture, or on the contrary, it´s the constructed architecture which has appropriated the nature.


The way through the Forest
Courtesy of VAUMM
The way through the Forest
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The way through the Forest
Section - Before/After
The way through the Forest
General Section


The way through the Forest
Section Gif
The way through the Forest
Facade


The way through the Forest
Site
The way through the Forest
Detail

Vaumm
T +34 943 450625
Vaumm
Cuesta Aldapeta / Aldapeta, 32, 20009 Donostia-San Sebastian, Gipuzkoa, Spain