Municipal Police Headquarters

Foreign Office Architects Farshid Moussavi and Alejandro Zaera-Polo with Jorge Arribas, Nicolo Cadeo, Danielle Domenicone, Sergio Lopez Piñeiro, Natalia Rodriguez, Daniel Valle, Nuria Vallespin, Lluis Viu Rebes. Arquitecto Asociado: Antonio Marquerie, Torrevieja Structural Engineer: NB35, Madrid Services Engineer: Angel Garrido, Madrid Villajoyosa is the one remaining undeveloped spot on the Costa Blanca between Benidorm and Alicante on the Spanish White Coast. As the town brazes for the imminent invasion of tour-operators and developers, the local authorities have devised a series of planning operations and projects to upgrade the local infrastructure to cope with the emerging needs and control of the developments. This project aims at the design of a strategic site to the future development, a triangle limiting with the railroad tracks, the main highway access to the town, and the areas for future growth of the urban centre, where a new train stop has to be located, next to the new Municipal Police Headquarters. The building obtains its form, -an irregular pentagon- from the alignment with the neighbouring streets and views. The centralised plan tries to keep the building as compact and internal as possible, aiming to minimise the blockage between the city and the northern development: a core of stability in the vortex of circulation. With a background dominated by a large mountain and the remnants of the local farmland, we have tried to keep the mass as low as possible, as if it was another wall in the rural landscape. The plan is organised in three bays around a secret courtyard that brings light into a detention centre in the basement level. One band is dedicated to public interface, with an auditorium, a library and a testifying office. The second is dedicated to the administration and direction of the complex. The third is dedicated to the officers’ quarters and the different brigades. In the basement there is also a parking for the police vehicles, a shooting gallery for training and an archive area. The mass is clad with a concrete plate that folds to enclose the facilities, and produces a series of skylights for the different rooms. The exteriors walls are pierced by series of holes that vary in density to produce lattices for the windows.