The school is located at the cornice of the Enrique Tierno Galván Park, in Valdemoro, that limits with the Andalucía highway. The building works with the idea of mimesis with the landscape, but also with an experience of “coalescence” within the indoor atmosphere. From the street of access, on the higher level, the only thing one can see is the landscaped roof, which extends the rest of the park and so turns it into a sort of support for it. The strategy includes a continuous enclosure, with several voids at different heights, and an external pixellation of different textures on all the surfaces. One of the objectives is to blend the building with its environment and interweave views of the park and the skyline of the city; another aim is to organize the different areas in the school so that they adapt to their occupants, the children, and to their changing perceptions in playing. In the indoor space the main issue is to work with the phenomenology of the place and its temporality. In this way, at some moments the visual events are able to create identity and to immerse participants in a common experience that joins them together and with that and to that concrete moment.

Authors: Mª Auxiliadora Gálvez Pérez and Izabela Wieczorek. (Gálvez+Wieczorek)

Collaborators: M. Á. García Grande, M. García, K. Fernández, P. Cortés, C. de Prada, J. Lobato, J.-B. Joye and M. Á. Rica (Technical Architect)

Developer: Ayuntamiento de Valdemoro

Advisors: Technical installations: Axón. Tecnología industrial; Structure: Gerardo Cantalejo

Construction Company: Dragados

Date: 2006 (project) 2007 (construction)

Location: Madrid, España

Built Surface: 1.622,22 m2

Budget: 1.745.256,76€

Photography: ImagenSubliminal (Miguel de Guzmán+Rocío Romero) and Alejandro García & Francisco Andeyro.

BUILDING SELECTED (Pre-finalist) at the X Spanish Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism