Project developed by Estudio SPN: Juana Canet, Rut Cuenca, Elena Gómez. The design reinvented a series of disused spaces of a historic building in the center of Madrid, where TeamLabs are located. The new spaces will serve as multipurpose rooms where students can meet, work, eat, organize screenings or talks, etc (Sala Amart); and a kitchen (Sala la Mère) which is also a point of encounter for students. TeamLabs is not a typical university, it is a campus of entrepreneurship and innovation and this spirit is reflected in the spaces they occupy.
In TeamLabs everything is different, the space gets built through ‘derives’, through wandering around the corridors and corners that tell us about the old and the new, the past and the future, the historic fabric and the new branding. In this space the users take an active part, they must explore the entirety of the space to perceive what it means as a whole. For in every corner, every room, something special happens which is different to the next and that would not make sense without the previous one. The proposed spaces are the surprise at the end of the route through several corridors.
THE GAME:
‘Homo ludens’, the man who plays, highlights the importance of play in the sociocultural development of humans. The act of playing is inherent to human culture and learning. The tangram (a Chinese game consisting of seven polygonal pieces which can form different figures) makes sense in this context, as a game supporting the construction of space. The idea of tangram is transferred to a spatial dimension intervening in walls, floors, ceilings and furniture through guide lines. These spatial guide lines position the furniture in space, locate the lighting and relate the different areas.
FLEXIBILITY:
The furniture is modular and flexible, starting from the idea of tangram, the tables of different textures can be combined to adapt to the different uses of the room maximizing the spatial experience. Modular seating stands are designed to increase the versatility of the space and connect it with the adjacent external space.
UNLIMITED:
The finishes reflect the new and the old (leaving parts of demolition exposed) and are completed with mapping of cities. These cities mapped with an artistic interpretation are the destinations of the ‘learning trips’ that the students realize during their studies: Mumbai, San Francisco, Shanghai, etc.
THE CHALLENGE:
Our challenge was to design a multifunction room and a kitchen that included TeamLabs’ spatial brand concepts: to be different (TeamLabs is different), to be imperfect (prototyping culture) and to be ‘home’ (TeamLabs as a community of learning teams). The space had to be "flexible"; meaning that flexibility is source of inspiration for other uses and functions: meeting room, projections, reading, contemplation, relaxation, dreaming, play ... Because in TeamLabs, learning transcends the boundaries of what is programmed, turning the world into a learning platform.
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