The school, located in Ubrique, was originally designed by Antonio Sanchez Esteve and completed in 1963.

The rectangular, one level plot is surrounded by streets on three sides and buildings on the fourth side. The building placed in the centre of this site occupies two levels allowing extra outdoor space in order for the children to be segregated by sex, according to the existing strict rules. The entrance, along with the auxiliary spaces, is situated on the southern sun stricken side whereas the classrooms are situated on the softer northern light side which carries large openings. This is an example of how the international architectural modernist language is translated with the use of an inclined roof into vernacular.

The separation of students by sex in education has become a controversial subject in Spain. The architects were called in to refurbish and rearrange the layout of the school in order to bring the two sexes together. The existing layout of the building carries two identical parts on either side of an axis rendering their connection impossible.

A new meandering external corridor connected at either side to the original façade creates a new secure outdoor playground. The need of a covered area in the playground for the breaks in winter and the connection of those two parts inspired the architects to transform it into a covered path that allowed people to walk from one part to the other without getting wet when it rains, a good solution, especially for disabled people.

It is interesting how this element and the existing building take on a new entity and interact without physically affecting each other. Polycarbonate panels were used both for transparency and protection.

The colour scheme was also part of the intervention: white for the exterior, colours for the interior. A soft beige colour for the classrooms and an intense orange colour for the connection spaces.

The architects make analogies of their intervention and a prosthetic surgery procedure applied to a human body. In their own words:

‘This case of architecture from the past with certain malfunctions that forced us to improve it using our best tool: the Architecture. On one hand, the surgery-architecture to prepare the body first, and after that the prosthesis-bypass-architecture as a complement and extension; what we obtained is a kind of synergic architecture, something where the interaction between the two elements is more than the sum of the individual effects. This artificial element is made so as to adapt to the body where they are installed, understanding the context and their purpose, without producing any rejection; in this case it is conceived as an alien in the patient, with a different geometry and a specific technique that generates specific identity. A quality of lightness, transportable, assembly, almost machines…, generated by the constructive systems that distinguish them from the existing body. In the end, we have an example where architecture and its techniques save the patient from its illness far from mummifying or letting it die, and all that using strange and non transferable machines, but at the same time, understandable, handy and stimulating.

ARCHITECT: Julio Barreno Gutierrez, Spain, www.juliobarreno.com. CLIENT: Víctor de la Serna y Espina public school. LOCATION: Ubrique, Cádiz, Spain. DESCRIPTION: Education. DATE: 2010.
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