New Market in La Laguna

• ClientLa Laguna Town Council
• PlaceSan Cristóbal de La Laguna
• CoauthorsDavid Espejo Campos_ Architect, Félix Perera Pérez_ Architect, Antonio Álvarez_ Architect

The New Market’s project is developed from the sinthesis of the following perceptions: - The city´s scale. - The relationship between the building (the mass) and the patio (the empty space). - Its closest environment: Plaza del Adelantado, the chapel and the new plaza, three elements, which the New Market has to interrelate with each other. The project aims to adapt to the building’s scale in La Laguna. Therefore, the program is differentiated into two spatially interrelated pieces: the Market’s volume, which opens toward the new plaza and the administrative piece opening towards Plaza del Adelantado. By doing so, a relationship between the new plaza and the chapel is established through the new ensemble. Additionally, new visual relations are obtained with the Plaza del Adelantado through the glazed ground floor of the administrative piece. Introducing the empty space of the plaza to the inside of the building, a mass, sculptured by air itself, is constructed - a reinterpretation of the patio surrounded by the typical edifications from La Laguna. The public space enters through the ground floor and extends in the interior as a great plaza, where the first stands of flowers, fruit and vegetables are located, with their colors being the principal revetment of the building. The built volume is covered with an external skin conforming its urban image. This skin is created by synthesis of two apparently contradictory perceptions, characteristics of the La Laguna edification: the heaviness of the massive whitewashed walls and the lightness of the wooden lattices used in the balconies and convents. Together a latticework of white concrete is achieved, with its origin being the abstraction of the Verode plant, which grows on the facades and roofs of La Laguna. This thick latticework contributes to create an image texturized from volume, which sometimes is completely perforated while other times it creates a relief of the pattern.