Health center in Andalucia, Hard-Core architecture by the studio LosdelDesierto.

Elena Minguela

27 julio 2011

The young architectural studio LosdelDesierto (literally The ones from the Desert), self-defined as “Hard-Core architects” and consisting of Eva Luque & Alejandro Pascual, have created a health centre, private parking and a public square in Vélez-Rubio, Almería.

The idea was inspired by Almeria’s landscape that surrounds the site. The importance of connecting with the environment and the village in a building made to be used by all its residents. It looks for contrasts found in the nearby Sierra de María: land and snow, brightness and opacity, light and shadow, and silvery and brown hues.

So steel has been used as the only material with different surface treatments: rusty Corten imitates the earth, and galvanised steel “to materialise the sparkles of the snow and sky».

The health centre represents a priori an amorphous volume. But to generate surprise when one sees the building, and as one approaches and surrounds it, the building reveals cracks, cavities, shelters and caves cut into the steel. According to LosdelDesierto, “the building’s exterior has infinite sides and infinite moments modified by the incidence of the sun, of the lights and shadows, of the people that come and go, or those who peacefully use the public space of the square. Inside the cave, the brightest and most privileged spaces are reserved for those who are waiting for their appointment».

More about LosdelDesierto

Eva Luque and Alejando Pascual met in 1997 in Seville, and two years later they started their architectural and “schizophrenic” adventure, as they put it. Soon they withdrew “to the Desert” and participated in many competitions, including winning several projects that made them stand out as one of the most promising young studios. They define their architecture as “Hard-Core”, a concept from which they’ve created a manifesto of their own “A Hard-core architect operates in no-man’s land, feeds from repulsive sources outside every archetype supposedly beautiful, acts doing nothing in the no-place, looks for and wishes the social event. A Hard-core says: the Desert is a non-location, where the no-place is a pre-disposition. And beyond the place, the Desert is an attitude.”

Read all about the Hard-Core Architecture Manifesto here.

Photographs by LosdelDesierto, Jesús Granada and David Frutos.