Javier Sánchez Jiménez_portfolio

JAVIER SÁNCHEZ JIMÉNEZ -ARCHITECT-

PORTFOLIO

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CHILDREN HOSTEL BY THE LLAUSET WATER RESERVOIR

Llauset Water Reservoir, Aneto, Montanuy, Aragon (Spanish Pyrenees) (2018)

BRIEF This children hostel was my Final Thesis project (PFC, Proyecto Fin de Carrera in Spanish) which made it eligible for the BEAU’s (Bienal Española de Arquitectura y Urbanismo, Spanish Architecture and Urbanism Biennale) Final Thesis Competiton, being one of the 16 finalists from all over the country. The building is placed in a remote valley in the Spanish Pyrenees, in the Aragonese former County of Ribagorza and close to the Dales of Aran and Boi. This valley is one of the many picturesque locations interconnected by the GR11 route- a mountain hiking route that runs from the Bay of Biscay to the Mediterranean Sea-, and ironically, owes much of its beauty to a rather drastic human intervention: the construction of a dam . An impressive work of engineering in the 1980s, the dam was terribly costly in money, workforce and even human lives, yet, strangely, it didn’t extend its toll to the environment; once the works where finished and the valley got half flooded, it became even more beautiful and biologically rich than before. The environment resulting from the combination between the majestic nature of the high Pyrenees and a very fortunate human intervention produces a superb scenography, a landscape of rock peaks and natural spires and waterfalls that cascade down from glacial lagoons to the greater levee. Furthermore, it also indirectly restricted further human alterations; since the dam blocks the only natural entrance, now it can only be acceded through a tunnel drilled in the mountain’s granite rock during the construction. Such a secluded, beautiful, fairy-tale like realm seemed like the perfect place for children to spend their holidays to me.

The project is addressed from three different fields: firstly, as mentioned, the site. For me, this notion does not encompass only by the scenery and its natural landmarks- but and also vernacular and historic architectureIn this case, provided that the building was certainly not going to have a domestic scale, I decided to take my inspiration from the larger buildings; the beautiful Romanesque churches and the ruined castles. Secondly, the built architecture: given its situation, this hostel would likely resemble to the many the mountain refuges built in this last two centuries; and, specially, the later, geodic-shaped ones that were provided with evident technical improvements compared to those from 1800 to 1950s. And, in the third place, the theorized mountain architecture par excellence: Bruno Taut’s Alpine Architektur. All of these ideas are intertwined by the concepts of “tower”-present both in the historical local architecture and in Taut’s work- and crystalline, glass-like shapes-which both Taut and the built refuges seem to tend to, and even encouraged by the spire-like, sha rd-like elements that are inherent to the mountain’s identity. A fourth condition superimposes to these three: the user’s cultural conditioning-primarily children- formed by a fantastic imaginary transmitted in books, movies and uncountable other media. This is reflected in the building’s complex, varied-sometimes even windy- interior rooms, creating memorable places such as the ever unpredictable, inter-crossing, inter-connecting staircase and the “secret tour” a series of hidden rooms, passages and stairways, created so the children find the different parts of it room after room; also, the dormitories have been shaped as amphitheatres so they become places of leisure and playing. To sum up, a place conceived to fulfil the yearning for thrill, imagination and adventure that lives in every child’s heart.

Southern elevation

A video about the project can be found in Youtube following this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeBjFUQ3RaM. Extensive technical documentation, including detailed floor plans and technical information regarding construction and 2 facilities can be provided if requested.

Location within the Iberian Peninsula Crossection

Venns’diagram showing the idea behind the project

Birds observatory

11th floor

10th floor

9th floor

8th floor

dormitory secret observatory library

7th floor

library

6th floor

dormitory

secret library

5th floor

dormitory secret lobby

reading room

teacher’s bedroom

dormitory

dormitory

secret net room

buffet

bar

exhibition hall

1st Basement

kitchen coats

lockers

teacher’s bedrooms

dormitory

dormitory

Ground floor

boiler room

secret board games room

secret bowling alley

dormitory

lobby

dormitory

1st Floor

3rd floor

dormitory

dormitory

2nd floor

dormitory

4th floor

dormitory

dormitory

dormitory

pellets hammermill

2nd Basement

fire protection laundry room

cloting store ironing

drying

pellets fuel telecom tank

food store pantry

water pumps room trash fire room pumps

electricity

boots infirmary

secret common room

exhibition hall refectory

secret ball pool

shop

visitors’ hall

office

secret ballroom upper terrace

guest’s hall

auditorium

lobby

HVAC

reception intermediate terrace

secret theatre garage

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fire tank

Rendering of the dormitories

View from the West

Rendering showuing the interlocking stairs

Rendering of the refectory

Rendering of the bar area

View from the North

Rendering of the “secret� birds observatory

View from the East

A video about he project can be found in YouTube following this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GeBjFUQ3RaM .Extensive technical doumentation, including detailed floor plans and technical information regarding construction and facilities shall be provided if requested.

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BRIEF This cemetery located in the southern Spanish municipality of El Pozuelo was first proposed to me as an academic exercise back in 2012 as part of a series of projects to be placed the region around the Río Tinto (Red River), a place renown for its mining history; copper was so abundant that, in the 19th century, it prompted the excavation of the largest open-air mine in the world, run by a British company. But the area had been coveted by foreign powers ever since the pre-roman times when not just copper, but also gold and silver could be found at plain sight; however, the local elite hold sway and benefited from the wealth, as it is evidenced by the remarkable amount of megalithic burials dating from the Chalcolithic. One of them is the Dolmen number 7 in El Pozuelo, which was given as the “starting point” of the project, being one of the best preserved in the area, likely because of being adopted by the successive peoples and cul tures. Originally a tomb, it was later used as an altar by the Celtic tribe of the Lusitanians, tolerated by the Romans, spared by the Muslims and the Medieval Christians, who believed it to be fair people keep. From the beginning I sensed the huge potential of this project as a landscaping intervention, a sensation that was confirmed once I could see the actual site; and endless succession of rolling hills of a golden-reddish slate covered in rockrose, holly oak and stone pine; however, due to the subjects’ nature, I was told to focus in the purely architectural design leaving aside any “gardening” concerns- as they were dismissed by my professor at the time. However, in late 2019 I decided to re-take the project and, thus, take advantage of what seemed to me like a missed chance. Still the project revolves around the dolmen-albeit not touching it- and the notion of the diverse heritage, the many valid backgrounds that conformed its deniable allure as a sacred, spiritual place.

Dolmens, despite its crude looks, were carefully and deftly built to face the sunrise in significant religious festivities connected with the death, usually the Solstices, so the rising sun’s beams would penetrate to the bottom of the chamber; however, with the arrival of the Celtic peoples to western Europe, the festivities’ date shifted from the solstice to Samhain, which in turn became the Christian festivity of Hallowmass in the Celtic culture-based countries; whilst in the Anglosaxon world it is its eve that is celebrated (Halloween, 31st October), in Spain the traditional celebration day is All Hallows, (1st November), with families flocking to cemeteries to honour the dead and decorate their tombs lavishly with flowers. Given the nature of the Spanish climate, it is also usually one of the last warm autumn days.

ALL HALLOWS’ CATHOLIC CHURCH AND CEMETERY IN EL POZUELO MEGALITHIC AREA El Pozuelo, Riotinto county, Huelva, Spain (2020)

Location within the Iberian Peninsula

Dolmen n7 main corridor

As a child, I loved holding my grandmother’s hand as we crossed the cemetery gates in All Hallows, a fairy-tale like realm of blazing flowers that seemed to burn in a colour wildfire and serene cypresses – the traditional Spanish cemetery tree-towering against the Castilian cloudless, sapphire-blue sky. In an attempt to recreate this impression, and also as a tribute to the Celtic religion, which considered confined water bodies as an entrance to the Otherworld, the access to the cemetery is made through crossing an artificial lake, created by damming an existing streambed, and after that going uphill to reach the church, designed as another “Christian dolmen”, facing All Hallows noon’s sun-the time where religious services are usually held, a place of transition between the dead and the living resting on an esplanade of olive trees, a species of great significance in both the Roman and the Catholic religions as a symbol of peace and rebirth; after crossing yet another water stream, one finally plunges into the realm of the death, a slow climb uphill marked by three stops: the monument of the Gender-Based Violence Victims, the monument of the Deceased Children and the monument of the Fallen in the Spanish Civil War, that finally connects with an existing path that heads up to the dolmen. The tombs, niches, pantheons and columbaria are all designed to have a “crude”, megalithic-like appearance and most of the original monte bajo (bush) vegetation is preserved, including a series of non-indigenous species used in this project that reach their peak performance- be it by their flowers our fall foliage- around the late week of October and the first of November in Southern Spain.

Another remarkable spaces are the Miners Remembrance Garden, a maze of yew hedges enclosing vine-covered “halls”, inspired in the nearby mines’ galleries and the Ceremony Island, a small island in the lake with an amphitheatre to perform concerts, masses or other public ceremonies outdoors.

Church’s interior

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Rendering showing the entrance bridge

The graveyard section plays with the topography to create a number of levels and terraces where every tomb has its own private “chapel”. Taking advantage of the acidic soils, plants like azaleas and rhododendrons, scarce in other parts of Spain, can be used. Together with other species and architectural elements, they work as natural screens that are pierced to allow certain views from some poits to other, as shown in the schematic plan below. This arrangement was inspired by the great 19th century English landscape architects such as Lancelot ‘Capability’ Brown and John Vanbrugh and their strategic placing of ‘eye catchers’ to organize gardens.

Tombs and columbaria, crossection

0- Dolmen number 7 1- All Hallows Church 2- Auditorium’s stage 3- Graveyard reception plaza 4- Gender-based Violence Victims’ memorial 5-Deceased Children Memorial 6-Monument of the Fallen in the Spanish Civil War 7-Back entrance and Monument to Rio Tinto’s History and Memory Other remarkable elements in the project are: A-Car Parking B-Remembrance Island C-Mine Workers’ Remembrance Garden D-Monumental Cross Pantheons, crossection

0 7 6

5

4

3 D C

1

B 2

A

Landscaping plan

Scheme showing visual axis

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The trees chosen for this project are largely native species in the Iberian peninsula; the foreign ones, such as Liquidambar or Gynko biloba, have a longstanding tradition in the Spanish gardening

Cedrus atlantica ‘Glauca’

Celtis australis

Cupressus sempervirens ‘Stricta’

Gynko biloba

Liquidambar styraflua

Olea europaea

Pinus pinea

Populus alba

The bushes follow the same pattern as the trees, with a number of native species such as Genista or Cistus blending with foreign species that have proven themselves resistant and acdequate to the Southern Spanish climate, such as Rosa, Hortensia or Bouganvilla

Landscaping plan: trees Prunus subhirtella ‘Autumnalis’

Arbutus unedo

Berberis thunbergii ‘Atropurpurea Nana’

Bouganvillea glabra (several varieties)

Cistus x

Genista hispanica

Hortensia macrophilia ‘Tiffany’

Juniperus horizontalis (several varieties)

Mahonia aquifolium

Rhododendron x Encore ‘Autumn Lilac’

Rosa x ‘La Sevillana’

Rosmarinus officinalis

Landscaping plan: bushes, reeds grasses and groundcovers Pyrus calleryana ‘Chanticleer’

Quercus ilex

Salix alba

Salix babylonica

The ensemble is completed with a number of groundcovers, both woodysuch as Juniperus, Rosmarinus or Berberis and grasses not mentioned in the schemes, such as chamomile or Festucas. The rivrsides and water banks are lined with the native reed, Juncus em manuelis . Some flower plants, such as salvias and zinnias, are also devised to be planted in open spaces, be in full sun or under the cover of trees.

Taxodium distichum

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The two criteria for choosing these species were their resistance to the dry, sometimes almost arid Southern Spanish summer, and their ability to be showy in late October and early November, conciding with the festivity of Hallowmass, when the cemetery is believed to be the most visited.. The fact that most of these plants should not pose important care problems has also been taken into account.

BRIEF: This is my only built work, and, also, my most personal one. I started designing my parents’ house’s garden right after the house itself was completed, when I was barely ten years old. Back then, all my lore on gardening came from decoration magazines, which in turn were heavily influenced by Anglosaxon landscaping; thus, I first envisioned endless lawns dotted with tall deciduous trees such as beeches or linden, criss-crossed by winding paths, featuring rose gardens and ponds where grass would go down to the very water’s edge. Evidently, all these grand Capability Brown-esque schemes crashed, and quite heavily, with the harsh reality of the dry Castillian climate and the stony soil- my town’s name, Alpedrete, comes from Latin “Ad Petrum”, which can be roughly translated as “(made) in stone”, and its renown for its granite quarries. It took me a couple of years to learn that the only way to succeed was to imitate the local natural spaces; shadowy woodlands crowded with bushes, rather than the neat, sun-kissed lawns in the British and American gardens featured in the magazines I loved so much.

MY PARENTS’ HOUSE’S GARDEN

Mataespesa, Alpedrete Guadarrama Mountains, Madrid (Spain) (2001-currently)

It took me even more to appreciate some of the local species- the evergreen, silver leaved holly oak, the sticky rock rose with its paper-like white blossom in May, the fragrant wild lavender and rosemary- and almost a decade to learn which of the species so praised in the gardening books written by English gardeners for their rainy homeland would actually work in the sunny stone heart of Castille; no rhododendron or azalea would ever thrive in our dry- and water prooflands, but I got to have my coveted rose garden, and although hydrangeas would practically be razed to the ground by the winter’s frostbite-just like Carthage by the Romans, my mother used to say- they would grow back and bloom in lovely shades of pallid blue, due to the acids in the soil, a by-product of granite’s slow decomposition. Camellias would be a perfect bet if placed in the shade and protected from the harsh northern wind- we were actually the first people in our neighbourhood to successfully grow camellias-and, despite Japanese maples wouldn’t really progress, peonies and junipers would indeed give the desired oriental touch; besides, the latter proved themselves to be the best groundcovers, successfully overcoming the weeds, and would look lovely against the purple Berberis, which sort of made up for the northern-European dogwoods in winter. Trees from warmer areas, such as Koelreuterias and Liquidambars, would surprisingly feel at their ease in Madrid’s mountainside; our Liquidambar definitely gave a most welcome surprise when it grew back after a windstorm had torn its uppermost part. But the greatest surprise came with our blue fir, which we bought when it was barely a meter and it survived three different transplant operations; now, with its towering 3.5 metres, its easily the most beautiful Christmas tree in the area, albeit also arguably the hardest one to place Christmas decorations on. We even got to have a little lawn, although our fight against weeds remains as fierce as the first day.

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I also began to appreciate some foreign trees that had a longstanding tradition in Spanish gardening, and were part of my daily landscape; the big and ghost-like Lebanon cedars, which could come in shades of gray and blue; the short, stout and always lovely olive trees-although our olive production is, to this day, negligible and the tall and narrow, column-like cypresses that line up our cemeteries’ borders.

And, of course, the fruit trees, especially those from the Malus, Pyrus and Prunus genera, which I consider the most versatile and useful kind of trees in Spain; (continues in the next page)

Mataespesa, Alpedrete Guadarrama Mountains, Madrid (Spain)

Location within the Iberian Peninsula

Different spots around the garden

in winter, they don’t block the sun, they have an impressive bloom in springtime, provides with a most needed shade in summer, when they also start to bear fruits; and, in addition, most of them have great fall foliage. And that, surprisingly, some palm species do withstand our bitter cold winters.

All in all, I consider this garden to be my great experiment in the field of landscaping; the one that has suffered my inexperience and the one that has rewarded me for my devotion every passing year; also, the one thing that convinced me to pursue a landscape architect career

Several of the garden in winter

Different scenes of the garden in spring

The swimming pool area in summer

The water cannal in summer

Several autumn scenes

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