Spanish architectural studio Cor Asociados Arquitectos has completed the design and build of Doctor Calatayud School in Aspe, Alicante, Spain. This contemporary elementary and middle school’s design is one that ensures well-being is on a par with education.
In designing a school building, Cor Asociados Arquitectos worked to address and satisfy a number of proposed spatial demands. The school’s layout attends to a variety of criteria, including functionality and flexibility, light and ventilation, connection and circulation. The project sought to achieve a memorable, efficient (easily maintained), and sustainable building, promoting comfort and vitality.
As a place that is primarily aimed towards children, the architect designed a building with this particular audience in mind: “We opted for a low-rise organization that is better suited to the scale of the children [and therefore better serves the people] who will inhabit these spaces,” says Cor Asociados Arquitectos. “They are thus friendlier, not only for the pedestrian walking on the street, but also for the workers and users of the school who will find themselves in a welcoming and pleasant environment.”
The architectural design of the school is not limited to its programmatic or technological context, but also includes “aesthetic, sensory, and perceptual needs, so important and influential in people's lives,” says the architect. “Our ultimate goal is to ensure that the teaching center responds to human needs in healthy, sustainable, and inclusive conditions.”
Doctor Calatayud School is a 3,538-square-meter (38,083-square-feet), two-story, L-shaped building, with its classrooms and services arranged parallel to a street on its western edge. The school’s administration wing and classrooms designed for occasional use are on the northern edge. The building is clad in a light-colored brick, imbuing the structure with a particularly sunny disposition (doubtless enhanced by the azure sky). On ground level, a deep porch that runs along the school’s internal playground side “unifies the image of the different volumes, visually and functionally connecting them,” says the architect. The porch offers shade and protection from both sun and rain. An extended canopy on the building’s upper floor protects rooms in that area from excessive heat and inclement weather.
Cor Asociados Arquitectos developed this project with the purpose of “humanizing spaces, [achieving] environments and services in which all people see their physical and emotional needs satisfied.” The school’s contemporary interior is a mix of pink and grey ceramic tiles with a quiet, soothing quality. Internal doors and windows are framed in wood. The pink-colored stairwell is especially serene (perhaps in a bid to calm the dash of noisy and energetic youngsters).
