Celebrando la esquina,

Ricardo Javier López Sánchez

Revitalization of Plaza Trevijano by redefining its perimeter at the corner through an atrium and an elliptical plane inclined in height.

The project is located in the Trevijano square, in Logroño under the framework of the Concéntrico competition. The Trevijano square, heritage of the old industrial colony of Trevijano, is located tangentially to the first walled boundary of the city of Logroño. Due to its context, it is one of the main gateways of flow into the old town, thanks to its peripheral parking and its connectivity with the portales street that organizes and measures the old town.


The proposal stems from the initial observation of the Trevijano square as a space that after the pedestrianization of its adjacent streets, has been left as a stony mantle lacking character or hierarchy that relates to its limits through street furniture, which cuts the link at street level, but still allows a series of cross visuals that load the space with visual pollution, sentencing it to its current disuse. The project opens the Trevijanos Square at the corner, interconnecting it with the two axes that previously only passed inertly and tangentially. In this way, the Plaza de los Trevijanos recovers its function as an antechamber to the city.


An inclined elliptical plane characterizes both spaces of the square, celebrating its corner by means of a scenic space that invites to dilute its previous limits. On its opposite side, the wooden plane acts as a lure and is set back to give the existing tree the function of a central pole. By its inclination, the porch space visually segments the square, giving it two new degrees of intimacy. At the same time, it adds visual tension to the central node of the project, bringing attention back to a square that had fallen into disuse. In this way, previously existing elements, but lacking prominence due to the lack of visual hierarchy and poorly articulated limits, recover their own value by redrawing their immediate perimeter. The stands consolidate this gesture, in a line that extends and gathers according to the spaces it articulates, giving a new look to the already emblematic plaza.


Its colorful character is based on the existing colorimetry of the place and plays with three unique colors that are framed in simple and dynamic geometries. The bleachers offer different colors to each of their faces, responding again to the different character that the project draws on both sides of the intervention, as well as giving plurality to the experience of surrounding the intervention depending on the direction from which one comes. Likewise, the so-called wafer, is expressed in a forceful black in its urban facet and in a striped finish in its inner part aligning with the structural tectonics that accompanies it. Its structure is simple, and is expressed with honesty under wooden profiles of 7x10cm and 2.22 x 1.22 cm long plates. Its dry assembly allows for disassembly and subsequent assembly for reuse.


Ultimately, the project, as an urban graft, mediates with the feverish heritage of the place, reorganizes its adjacent circulations and offers citizens two spaces of enjoyment with which to reconcile with the existing heritage in the Plaza Trevijano.

 

Author: Ricardo Javier López Sánchez.
Location: Logroño, Spain.
Year: 2023
Competition: Concéntrico, Festival internacional de arquitectura y diseño de Logroño.