Gorgullón Social Center / Jose Jorge Santos Ogando + Angel Cid Carballo

Architects: Jose Jorge Santos Ogando + Angel Cid Carballo
Location: Pontevedra , Galicia, Spain
Construction Manager: Jose Jorge Santos Ogando
Contributors: Jose Carlos Mera Rodriguez, Ledicia Fraga Domínguez, Paula Mª Casal Vázquez
Project Year: 2010
Project Area: 408.66 sqm
Photographs: Santos-Díez  / BIS Images

The Social Center for the O Gorgullón neighborhood, which holds the Pontevedra town hall, will be the first of a future web of social centers in other neighborhoods across the city. The interior has a simple, unspecialized organization which allows for a multi functionality of use for people of distinct ages and interests.

Thus, a unique, easily recognizable exterior image was designed, one which could become a reference in the neighbrohood and an identifiable marker for all of these centers.

The big logo makes up the facade and is repeated in the interior as furniture, the only unifying, organizing element that runs throughout the interior, generating versatile and easily legible spaces. The large furniture made of Pladur and glass plays with the idea of veiled transparencies and, along with the glass partition, allows for a visual permeability throughout (except in the restrooms and stores).

On the main facade, and on the secondary ones as well, bands of green allow a diffuse relationship with the exterior; a light barrier, almost vegetal, allows a veiled transparency between the exterior and interior. In the interior, the bands become big graphic motifs over the glass. Moveable partitions allow the space to be played with and specialized with furniture (chosen for its versatility and ease of transportation).