AHI Architectural Heritage Intervention

“Contributing to enhancing our heritage, as the way forward for 21 st Century architecture is our raison d’être; to emphasize a diverse, rich vision that necessarily complements the intervention is our mission, and achieving it with reflexive and purposeful efforts is the challenge”.

This project, founded in, and directed since, 2011 by Ramon Calonge, Oriol Cusidó, Marc Manzano and Jordi Portal, architects and members of the Group of Architects for the Defence and Intervention in Architectural Heritage (AADIPA), has, through the years become a platform that includes four actions that are both independent and transversal.
 
The European Award, a biennial event that brings together and showcases the multiple approaches of intervention in Europe.

The International Biennial, a framework that serves to compare and gain closer insight of quality interventions in architectural heritage in non-European countries.

The digital Archive, a live and open window that provides a panoramic view of interventions in the history of our surroundings.

The Forum, a meeting place where you can participate in on-going debates about the main preoccupations and lines of thought about interventions in architectural heritage in Europe.

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Last Chance for a Slow Dance

Last Chance for a Slow Dance

Given the lack of covered public spaces in the town, during the development of the draft for the refurbishment of the Larrabetzu town hall building, the idea of replacing the building attached to it, emerged. This, ruined and of little architectural value, would be transformed in a covered outdoor space that could complement the public space that surrounds the town hall, creating a space protected from bad weather but at the same time open, ventilated, bright and highly permeable. The space is configured by means of a structure that acts as an envelope for the new volume, very similar to that of the previous building. From a perspective of respect for pre-existence, the project recovers the original physiognomy of the dividing wall, and integrates the external stairs and the annexed fountain. Through its identification in the collective memory, this gesture contributes to the quiet integration of the new building, both physically, in the well cared for environment of the old town;and temporarily,as another substrate in the history of the place

Author

behark
Beñat Saratxaga
Gentzane Goikuria

Collaborators

Team: Asier Madarieta
Quantity surveyor: Juan Luis Urresti
Timber structure: Madergia

Edition

6
Finalist

Year

2021

City

Larrabetzu

Country

Spain

Website

www.behark.com

Surface area sqm

125

Cost €

330.000

Client

Public

Original Programme

Mixed uses

Programme

Public Space

© Photographer

Mikel Ibarluzea

Períod

Vernacular

Type of intervention

Transformation

Level of intervention

Total / Integral