Architects from the Spanish studios Palma and Hanghar built a stylized “house” of modular terracotta blocks. 

Photo: Luis Díaz Díaz

As part of the Concéntrico Architecture and Design Festival, which takes place in the Spanish city of Logrono, Studios Palma and Hanghar presented a temporary installation Tipos de Espacios. As a place for intervention, the architects chose a picturesque alley leading to the red-brick pipe of a local tobacco factory. The authors turned the narrow space between two colonial-style houses into a sequence of “rooms” in which all partitions and built-in elements are made of terracotta blocks with a lattice structure.

Photo: Luis Díaz Díaz

The authors explain that the blocks-modules made by hot molding play the role of a universal tool with which you can create spaces of any type. The installation, logically named Tipos de Espacios, is an exercise in modeling: the architects deliberately made it out of rooms of different layouts. Compact rooms with rounded partitions, podiums and additional volumes are “strung” on a central axis, which leads the visitor to a courtyard with a massive pipe.

Photo: Luis Díaz Díaz

Photo: Luis Díaz Díaz

Photo: Luis Díaz Díaz

Photo: Luis Díaz Díaz

The choice of material helps to correlate the monochrome installation and the place where it is located: modules with an openwork surface are made of the same terracotta from which the brick walls of the chimney are made. The unity of color and texture ensures the artistic design of the floor – the authors covered it with small fragments of clay products. The work of Palma and Hanghar symbolizes the connection between traditional and modern architecture, ancient pottery and modern technology. 

Photo: Luis Díaz Díaz

Photo: Luis Díaz Díaz

Photo: Luis Díaz Díaz

Photo: Luis Díaz Díaz

Photo: Luis Díaz Díaz