Phase two of remodelling work on El Ninot market in Barcelona is nearing completion.

This phase involved the excavation of the market’s basement floors, producing two new levels to house 100 parking spaces, a self-service facility (1,500 m2), a loading bay of approximately 1,000 m2 and storage units for both the market and the self-service facility.

The construction of these two new basement floors has raised the market, and a provisional structure has been built to support it until work on the foundations is complete.

Architect: Josep Lluís Mateo

Client: Institut Municipal de Mercats de Barcelona-IMMB

Site: Calle Mallorca 135, Barcelona

Competition: 2008

Construction: 2010-in progress

Surface: 15.000 m2

Budget: 20,209,000.00 euros

Photo: Adrià Goula

More information about Ninot market here.

Click here to watch the video on YouKu.

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The Context

Context is the starting point of the Ningbo News and Media building design. As a reflection to the surroundings, the project appears a double-face character.  Building on the south side has a clear form and a continuous street façade. As a result, the continuity of Jingjia road is kept. It also deals with the institutional buildings of government office area on the south.

While on the north side, in order to protect the residential area and kindergarten, a large void is placed and developed into a square. The north-south axis is formed. The building volume reduces from south to north to protect the residential space.

Besides that, the green park in the east brings elements from the new city eco-corridor. A landscape sequence is designed from river bank to the building, and then crosses through and connects with the square. Several mountains with vegetation are placed in the square creating a new topography which actives the ground floor commercial functions of office building. A natural axis which consists of green landscape is formed. Building volume reduces from west to east and finally ends in the park.

Space & Function

The second point is space and function. Building functions are arranged in two volumes by the urban axis. We design News and Media Building as a city with network system. The functions are arranged with 4 courts in the centre which creates a horizontal and vertical connection in the space with nature and man-made environment are connecting and each part related.

The roof garden which related to the 4 courts not only serves as a visual art for the office upper levels but also contains a sport element jogging path which related to the sport facilities beside.

The office for sell and lease has a clear and flexible layout which provides more possibilities for further divisions. Two solid volumes are arranged by the central landscape court. Three transparent cantilever cross the “solid” and connect north-south which provides a recreation space related to the square.

The Form

Finally is the building form and façade. News and media building contains structural bone and light skin. The structure bone expresses a beauty of mechanical forces, while the transparent skin make the indoor and outdoor space connected.

Office building continues the concept of news and media building. The difference is it has solid volumes made of concrete and stone and 3 large cantilevered transparent volumes. It creates a contrast between solid and void, heavy and light.

Kevin Sun,

Architect at Mateo Arquitectura

Click on the image to watch the video.

A report dedicated to The Film Theatre of Catalonia and Josep Lluís Mateo broadcasted on La 2 for Miradas 2 (from 3′59” to 7′19”).

Connecting Hall, Main Entrance of the National Gallery and access between the palaces Salm and Schwarzenberg
International Competition, First Award, 2004

Interventions in the entrance hall of Prague National Gallery and Salm and Schwarzenberg palaces, situated in Hradcanske Square.

Situation

The project sets out to create an open space, exploiting the situation of these three buildings so that their walls act as the façades of the foyer, using the minimum structures required. The façades are therefore built with no opaque facings, simply using the construction of two sheets (one formed by the floor, the other by the roof) that organize what used to be an empty space without weighing it down, as well as
drawing in daylight.

General concept. Secret garden. Space between roof and floor

The roof is a continuous sheet that stops short of the buildings around it, producing large skylights that generate an interesting interplay of reflections with different degrees of shine.

Longitudenal Section

The floor folds to adapt to the different levels of the existing entrances. The paving combines different types of stone such as black marble, travertine and local red stone, creating a study of geometries and finishes that suggest the work of artisans.

The penultimate phase of the building has just been completed, and all that remains is the installation of the false ceiling, to be made of expanded metal, the lighting system, and fittings and furnishing.

Author: Josep Lluís Mateo
Client: National Gallery of Czech Republic
Site: Salm Palace, Hradcanske Square, Prague
Project: 2004 - works 2009 - 2012
Surface: 1.500 m2
Budget: 3.500.000 euros

Restricted competition

<<IMAGINING THE CITY OF THE FUTURE

The nature around us: the Mediterranean, my culture, too, the river, the mountains … data in the base. The interaction of flows: planes, trains, trams, buses… expression of interchange, of mobility and of the centrality of the place.

With all of this, plus the spaces that protect human activities, constructing a piece of contemporary city, a new centre of the city of the future.>>

Josep Lluís Mateo

Author: Josep Lluís Mateo
Client: Établissement Public d’Aménagement de la
Plaine du Var, Nice
Site: Nice Grand Arénas
Project: 2011
Surface: Grand Arénas: 680,000 m2
Pôle Multimodal Nice-Aéroport: 110,000 m2

Three of the four blocks are built with brickwork lattice, presenting a harder appearance, and the fourth
is built with wood, establishing a contrast with the others.
The underlying premiss of the project is to give the apartments the best orientation, in all cases avoiding
the north. Accordingly, all the dwellings in the block on the north side of the site, whether crossventilated
or corner apartments, have a double orientation.

The building on the north side is the hardest, built with 80% of black materials and 20% of white materials, thereby
marking the urban area, which starts with Avenue Andromède. On the central plot, the proportion is inverted (80%
white and 20% black) in a tendency to a shiny white that reflects the vegetation in the garden. The third volume on
Rue Jacqueline Auriol is grey (50% black, 50% white). The resulting volumes will be lightweight, perceived not as
a continuity of colour but as clouds of pixels, a collection of dots that form a volume.

Opposite the project is a public park, the Cours Pinot, with which the housing project seeks maximum interaction,
continuing into it the garden at its centre. The view from the park is, then, a close-up of the project showing the
three most solid blocks, with a lower, timber-clad building in the background.

More information about this project here.

On 31 January, the team from Mateo Arquitectura met planners from Bayonne City Council to present phase one of the Tête de Pont project.

The Tête de Pont project is of great importance to the city, not just in terms of size (around 70,000 m2 of floor area) but also for its role as the new gateway to Bayonne. It stands on the urban front of the river Adour in the vicinity of Henri Grenet Bridge, and its programme, laid out in two city blocks, comprises social and free-market housing, a shopping centre, a hotel, a home for the elderly, a small office sector and a car park.

This phase will include the central part of the project, focusing on the urban planning of Henri Grenet Bridge, for traffic, and the walkway situated beneath it, allowing pedestrians access to the city centre without having to cross the busy road.

More information about this project here.

This 26 January sees the opening of the exhibition “ARQUITECTURA ESPAÑOLA 1975-2010. 35+ CONSTRUYENDO EN DEMOCRACIA” (Spanish Architecture 1975-2010. 35+ Building in a Democracy) in the Sala Zuazo at the Arquerías de los Nuevos Ministerios in Madrid (Paseo de la Castellana, 67). The show will run till 1 April 2012.

Among the projects on show are two by Josep Lluís Mateo: the Miquel Martí i Pol vocational training centre, together with Eduard Bru, in Santa Coloma de Gramenet (1983) and the Eusebi Millán sports centre in the Pla d’en Boet district of Mataró (1985).

The exhibition previously travelled to the Benaki Museum in Athens (Greece) in the month of April 2010 and to the Leventis Museum in Nicosia (Cyprus) in the month of June 2010.

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Phase two of remodelling work on El Ninot market in Barcelona is nearing completion.

This phase involved the excavation of the market’s basement floors, producing two new levels to house 100 parking spaces, a self-service facility (1,500 m2), a loading bay of approximately 1,000 m2 and storage units for both the market and the self-service facility.

The construction of these two new basement floors has raised the market, and a provisional structure has been built to support it until work on the foundations is complete.

See more about El Ninot Market here.