Miguel Delibes Space / Rafael de La-Hoz

Architects: Rafael de La-Hoz
Location: Avenida de Pablo Iglesias, 28100 Alcobendas, Madrid, Spain
Project Design: Carolina Fernández, Francisco Arévalo and Hugo Berenguer
Project Director: Belén Rivera, Ángel Rolán
Team: Belén Rivera, Marta Tobías and Silvia Villamor
Project Year: 2015
Photographs: Alfonso Quiroga

Graphic Design: Luis Muñoz, Carlos Ripoll and Daniel Roris
Models: Fernando Mont and Víctor Coronel Benítez
Technical Architects: Yolanda Pérez Basanta and Cristina Nicolás
Construction Management: DPS, Javier Poole Derqui
Construction Company: UTE: ACCIONA- OBENASA (structure), UTE: PEYBER-FOSHIDRO (finishes and building services)
Structural Engineering: NB-35 S.L.
Mep Engineering: Pérez-Barja S.A.
Telecommunications: Pérez-Barja S.A.

From the architect. The new building hosts the International School of Photography PhotoEspaña de Alcobendas of Universidad Popular, as well as a media library and a citizen’s advice service of the City Council.

Inaugurated with the name of the famous Castilian writer Miguel Delibes, the new building is erected on a 6,000 square meter plot in Pablo Iglesias de Alcobendas avenue, one of the youngest areas of the city. It is the result of the express will of the developer to create an open and dynamic center so as to generate a singular volumetry.

Rafael de La-Hoz proposes a building with three clearly differentiated bodies which are completely interrelated: a glazed cube, a higher massive volume and a horizontal perimeter crown, which rises from the ground and creates another space, a plaza of convergence and exchange.

The gap generated by the perimeter crown forms a large void, a spacious patio in which the other two volumes are inserted, leaving spaces filled with air and light between them. These resulting courtyards have opposing characteristics due to their size, proportions and orientation. The bigger one is a landscaped and sunny winter courtyard. The second one is a vertical summer patio that provides shade.

The glazed central volume represents the core of the concept. It will host the multipurpose hall on the ground floor and the general vestibule of the building, together with the exhibition and rest area on the first floor. Its central position in the complex, between the two patios and tangential to the perimeter volume, turns it into an isolated body which, thanks to its crystalline materiality, looks like a huge night lantern from the outside.

The perimeter crown includes the lecture halls and workrooms of the University. The citizen’s advice service (SAC), the PhotoEspaña International Center, the teacher’s room and the direction are housed in the massive volume.

Each of these volumes have an independent use and access from the street. They can thus be used at different times and in different ways, which allows for a completely flexible use of the complex.