Alpendre

Wood design and build workshop

16th -21st September, 2024

Feáns, A Coruña

Galicia, Spain

Area: 18 m2

Workshop directors: Sebastian Erazo, Stefano Pugliese

Workshop Assistants: Tomás Valente, Javier Caride

Coordination and Management: Silvia Blanco

Project and development: CESUGA. Centro de Estudios Superiores Universitarios de Galicia

Co-funding: XERA. Axencia Galega da Industria Forestal

PRESS

Designboom

Archdaily

Archello

"Alpendre" originates from Galician/Portuguese, derived from Latin "appendix" (added or accessory).

The Faculty of Architecture of CESUGA conducted a wood design and build workshop during the IV Xornadas Internacionais da Madeira 2024. The main goal was to promote wood as a building material in the forestry region of Galicia, Spain.

The workshop focused on intervening in the environment near the University Campus: Feáns, A Coruña. This area, while undergoing transformation, maintains a strong identity, vibrant social interaction, and significant environmental and ethnographic value.

The project site—a public park and civic center in the valley—is an open space connected to the main road network and a rural path called Camino de Campos, which runs parallel to the river. This biodiversity-rich axis links the institution with Castro de Elviña, a protohistoric settlement from the 3rd century BC, located northeast. Along this axis lies a sequence of agricultural plots.

Initially, neighbors' suggestions were collected and incorporated into the analysis and discussion. Various locations and uses within the plot were evaluated using drawings, models, and on-site textile spatial exploration.

The existing building—a single-story pragmatic structure housing small multipurpose rooms—is set back from the road. This layout creates a paved parking space in front and a park to the south. The team decided to address the site's most challenging aspect: the front access sequence, including the parking area.

The final installation combined various proposals into a modular structure. Six repeated frames rise to the building's façade height, covered with translucent fabrics—predominantly on the north façade and roof, and partially on the south. The design emphasizes fabric presence on the north side, highlighting the institution from afar, while showcasing the wooden structure facing the building's façade. This creates a shared interior space complementing the civic center's access area. Between these frames, platforms at different levels provide seating, shade, and a slightly elevated viewpoint overlooking the surrounding fields.

Drawing from previous experiences and minimal planning, the fabrication process incorporated manual work values with a degree of improvisation. The workshop introduced the material, exploring its dimensioning possibilities and assembly details. The material's inherent logic, rationality, and the versatility of the tectonic, modular system contributed significantly to the learning process. The workshop's tight schedule also served as a crucial constraint in decision-making.

By the workshop's end, we had created a temporary installation—an experimental prototype standing directly on the ground without foundations. This project explored a dialogue between A Coruña's characteristic landscapes: urban, industrial, and rural. It sought to mediate between the neighbors and their civic center, and between an architecture disconnected from its geography and a new artifact aiming to establish functional or metaphorical relationships with the region's architectural identity