The smallest façade

This intervention constitutes the smallest building within the complex formed by the San Ignacio School in Pamplona-Iruña, Spain. It required a specific urban planning approval.

While it lacks a distinct façade facing the main street, it does possess its own façade on its western—or rear—elevation, visible only from a private interior courtyard shared with a government building.

The façade of this new building had to resolve the narrow nine-meter gap situated between the pre-existing structures.

These nine unobstructed meters of façade represented the sole void within a cohesive complex where exposed brick is the predominant material.

Surprisingly, our building was realized by projecting its façade forward relative to the existing building lines, thereby aligning itself with an unexpected structural element: the perimeter wall. Furthermore, the wall’s texture, materiality, and color were incorporated into the design.

In this way, this previously inconspicuous wall enabled us to circumvent the compositional challenge of bridging two independent, pre-existing buildings without introducing any new materials.

This solution afforded us the independence to freely articulate the project’s interior space, while simultaneously—and quite naturally—integrating the pre-existing garden into the overall complex.