Architecture and landscape joined together in the shade of a great pre-existing tree.

The building is located on the outskirts of Loja town in marked agricultural character. This project relates to a beautiful plot of cultivated land served by an irrigation ditch and a leafy mass. This building is thought to be very suitable for a new program based on consciousness, protection and publicity of the agricultural beliefs in Loja.

The project is divided in two main programmatic areas, office and laboratories. The firs of these areas allow activities related to reception and exhibition, meeting, reading and working. The second area is orientated to an education program for farmers, high schools and research program to investigators and workers. In the main lab area there is a zone for the treatment of seeds which are characteristic of the area.

The Bio Diversity Centre is involved in cultivation. The project tries to minimize its presence by becoming as natural to its surroundings as possible by opening out and absorbing an open patio of the ancient house from where you will find the pre-existing tree.

The building is not only the direct result of a program. Here, the project aims to be a part of the spectacular landscape that surrounds it. To get this it works with certain pre-existing elements that use like constructive materials, the ruin, the tree and the topography.

The old ruin generates the traces of the new project, redrawing the past in the shade of the tree. This great tree of more than 50 years is one of the main character in this intervention. The project embraces and turns it into reference from the interior. The white topography emphasizes the position of this element in the landscape. The location of the building also appreciates the presence of the arboreal mass along the river and the main façades. The strong conditions for topology, the encounter of the main slopes (up to 5m) will be solved by the building, performing similar to a hinge between the three different platforms of the terrain.

The main access to be cultivated area and buildings is compromised due to having only one access point. The surroundings, the brook, the vegetation of bank as well as the farm houses of the area penetrate into the building as a landscape thanks to the geometric disposition of the several surfaces, materials and angles of reflection.

A new architecture opens out between the traces of an ancient ruin and under the shade of the tree. Constructing in what constructed the project disappear reflecting the landscape one inserts in.

Authors:
TOMÁS GARCÍA PÍRIZ (CUAC.arquitectura) + JOSE LUIS MUÑOZ MUÑOZ

Tomás García Píriz (1978). Architect. Asociate Professor at Granada School of Architecture.
Jose Luís Múñoz Múñoz (1978). Architect.

Colaborators:
ALVARO CASTELLANO PULIDO, architectural student
ANA DELGADO, architectural student
MARTA REGUERA GÚTIEZ, architectural student
DANIEL USERO GUERRERO, architectural student
LUIS MIGUEL RUIZ AVILES, architect

FERNANDO ALVAREZ DE CIENFUEGOS MONTES, Graphic Designer

Photographs:
JAVIER CALLEJAS SEVILLA

Promotor:
AYUNTAMIENTO DE LOJA

Constructor:
CONSTRUCCIONES MELLADO ROMERO S.L.

Cost:
425.297,73 € = 587.889,05 $

Built Surface:
430,40 m2