Red Volumes
Hermanos Amorós Fernández School, Las Mesas, Cuenca
In the heart of a small town in La Mancha, facing an olive oil mill that fills the air with the scent of fresh oil, we took on the challenge of restoring and expanding a historic school. The complex, fragmented across several buildings, needed not only a functional update but also a unifying architectural vision rich in identity.
We entered the competition with a bold, colorful proposal that was deeply sensitive to its context.
We won.
The original school was made up of five buildings scattered across a large plot. It lacked proper connections, an administrative area, new classrooms, workspaces, and a library. Our proposal aimed to create unity through architecture: small strategic volumes, circular play areas, and meaningful intermediate spaces.
When construction began, we discovered that the main building was in a state of structural ruin. We had to demolish and rebuild it, preserving its original volume. From that point on, we worked with surgical precision: defining entrances, proposing new pathways, inserting light, honest structures. We even designed a sculptural cactus a playful, out-of-context gesture marking the main entrance.
The Transformation
We wanted the new volumes to speak a different language, to contrast with the existing structures. The old buildings, white and neutral, became a canvas that highlights the new constructions: lightweight, metallic, clad in red lacquered perforated panels. A bold, contemporary gesture set against a landscape of vineyards and olive groves.
The project not only reorganizes the space it fills it with meaning. It marks the contrast between what is inherited and what is new, between tradition and necessary renewal.
The use of color is not decorative: it acts as a code for play, a symbol of joy, and a pedagogical tool.
We wanted a school where learning would also be fun. And we made it happen.
Credits
Execution Project and Site Management
Blanca Rosa Gutiérrez Rodríguez
Natalia Gutiérrez Rodríguez