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Masaveu Tower

Location: Gijón, Spain

Client:  Grupo Masaveu

Date:  2006 Competition

Area:  12,000 m 2

Budget: €23 million

 

Team credits:

FOA Partner in Charge: Alejandro Zaera-Polo
Project Architect: Cristina Parreño

The Torre Masaveu Hotel building is located in the Gijón Waterfront, a privileged position both in terms of accessibility for pedestrians to the urban centre and the beach. The building’s location has also very privileged views to the sea.

The high-rise construction acts as a mechanism of liberation of public ground, enhancing transparency between the beach and the urban centre and contributing simultaneously to the creation of an urban landmark and optimising the views of the sea. We have aimed to reach the maximum possible slenderness in the building’s massing to minimise the shading of the beach. The building is proposed as a crystalline tower, with a skin of wavy glass, emerging from a garden with a hilly topography, like a miniature of the local landscape and orography.

The circular geometry of the plan will guarantee both solar exposure and views to the sea to all the rooms. To avoid long access corridors and to produce an intimate and luxurious atmosphere, we have placed only eight rooms per level, served by a vertical circulation core with panoramic elevators. The hotel rooms have a truncated wedge form opening towards the sea, with the access and utilities located in the inner section. A slight swelling of the envelope, like a bay-window in each of the rooms, distinguishes the living-room from the sleeping area, minimising reflections in the glass from the interior through its convex surface. In the even plans this swelling is located to the east of the rooms, whereas in the odd numbers it is located to the west. The crystalline membrane unites the bay-windows diagonally, producing an oblique undulation of the glass membrane which characterises both the outer texture of the facade, as well as the experience from the interior, like being within an aquatic environment.

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