Spanish Pavilion at Floriade 2012 [ENG]

[ENG] - The construction criterion arises from the conceptual approaches that have resulted in the slogan “naturally diverse”, which highlights the importance of organic products, diversity and natural richness. Likewise, the idea Cradle to Cradle will also be present in the exhibition, and the designed spaces will allude to cycles and continuity as added and essential values, in a modern concept of sustainability and of the use of natural resources.

The building confers continuity to the exhibition space through a formal gesture that unifies the whole of the surface available. The building arises literally from the land, slightly lifted in order to host the interior spaces of the exhibition. From a formal perspective, the reference to something as natural as topography and the growth of plants becomes the argument for a unification based on the idea of continuity in the outside meeting spaces, and connects them to the interior of the exhibition, though always visually linked through permeable closures of natural evocation.

Some of the materials, serving both as support and as coating and paving, have had different previous uses: wood from fruit boxes, planks and wood from building works, demolition beams, sleepers. Others come from remainders of agriculture products such as nut shells or trunks from burnt forests. This way, the C2C remains unchanged, in terms of conceptuality and formality.

BOXES AND CONTAINERS OF AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS
Paving built with different parts of wood that many of the boxes and containers used for transportation of products such as fruits and vegetables are made of, fixing them by mechanical means to a flat table surface (coming from recycled nut shells) and providing a continual finishing through the use of glue and resins.

SLEEPERS , CONSTRUCTION PLANKS , TRADITIONAL ARCHITECTURAL STRUCTURE ELEMENTS
Reuse of wood elements cut in planks of the desired dimensions, fixed by mechanical means to a flat basis or battened according to the location, paying special attention to a continual superficial finishing.

TRUNKS DISKS (CROSS CUT) AND WOOD COBBLES
Disks of different diameters with trunks cross cut reused from construction, mushroom growing or forest fires. Fixed by mechanical means to a continual surface and snapped on resin that may be dyed in different colours. In an analogous way wood cobbles can be used as a finishing for exterior and interior paving.

NUTSHELLS AND STONES
Both the nutshells (hazelnuts, walnuts, etc.) and the stones of other products (olives, peaches, etc.) can be used by mixing them with glue and resin in order to make continual paving as finishing of the building of the pavilion. On the other hand, through the crushing, grinding and composting, they can become the basis of construction elements such as boards and planks of properties similar to natural wood.

CANES, HURDLES , VINE SHOOTS
Vegetable elements such as canes and hurdles, used both in horticultural installations and traditional constructions, and shoots from vine or olive pruning can be reused in different ways in the construction of vertical paraments or ceilings and paving. The structure of the building is based on laminated wood nerves distributed in accordance with the line created by the curve of the ceiling, sustained by different dyed wood pillars.

Both the construction and exhibition level are articulated and organized through a unit repeated both longitudinally and transversally, thus creating the construction skeleton and modelling the partitioning of the transparent paraments of the façade. The height of the building is, as has been explained, the continuity of the horizontal terrain built in the brow of a hill with two layers that separate two clearly-defined spaces.

The lower space hosts private areas: offices, warehouses, services and a tasting area. The second space, of nine metres of height and a bigger surface, is distributed in different exhibition formats both audiovisual and in terms of fresh and manufactured products. The building of a square with stands in the exterior space has been suggested, where recreational activities, tastings and events could take place.