Location: Sergude, Galicia
Date: 2020
Design: LandLab + Práctica
Promoter: Axencia Galega da Quality Alimentaria.
Team: Jaime Daroca Guerrero, José Ramón Sierra, José Mayoral Moratilla, Miriam García García, Cristina Morata Longares, Paola Cuitiva, Sara Ingignoli
Beyond the landscape area, the project seeks to enhance the territorial enclave to which it belongs and its privileged visual relationships. The farm takes place in the viewshed that forms the Pico Sacro (533 masl), Monte do Gozo in the north and Santiago de Compostela to the west.
In order for these places to become 'spaces of Galician memory' it is necessary to identify and assess the process of developing complex habitats in an environment that has already been modified. The project recognizes that this complexity will not be immediate, since many of the habitats find their maturity after generating the appropriate conditions for their development and growth over many years. The ecological transformation of this place requires the planting, clearing, felling, care and maintenance of thousands of individuals. This development can in itself be an added value of the project, since it can be part of the training process of the students of the center or of the visitors' program. The proposal is then, to go from having homogeneous habitats with little interest to introducing catalysts of biodiversity and particularities that give identity to the place.
The development of the building complex of the Promotion and Image Center is determined by criteria of integration into the rural landscape of central Galicia, and of environmental sustainability.
On the one hand, the set of buildings is grouped into several nuclei, arranged around connecting cloisters of the different pieces of the program. These nuclei sit at different levels on the irregular terrain, while a series of elements of water guide visitors through the concatenation of spaces while linking the center to the natural cycle of the estate's habitats. All this generates an organic system capable of growing, adapting or decreasing over time in response to the changing needs of the Center. In addition, this disaggregated and flexible scheme refers to the spontaneous growth patterns of the traditional rural nuclei of the environment, thus framing itself in its specific context and integrating itself into the landscape.
On the other hand, the materiality and formal structure of the buildings respond directly to the climatic conditions of the place, seeking to reduce the energy demands of the whole and the optimization of natural resources. Building facades vary according to different orientations, offering a series of passive conditioning systems that result in significant energy and economic savings. They are finished in pieces of local granite, which integrates the new buildings with the heritage elements of the area, and offers ideal conditions for controlling indoor humidity and temperature.