Re-appropriation

I don't know about you but when I think of a community town hall I think of a rotten, unloved cavern. I imagine the town hall in Burghead as a relic, once a church, it was re-appropriated in the 1940's and remains unchanging. Sailing through the changing decades of youth club discos, indoor football, girl guides, BB's, jumble sales vegetable shows and village Celidhs. A place the has a distinct smell, a physics defying echo, running water only in the water closet and where the mice or something other has eaten the contents of the tuck shop. I'm not sure if it exists any more but when I was young this place had everything and nothing going for it at the same time.

In essence that's what a community centre is; everything and nothing. The dreaded word 'multipurpus' is banded about too much these days to describe a place that no one wants to take control of but everyone wants what it has to offer and then gurning when the free lunch isn't as tasty as they had hoped.

Anyway, this cheeky renovation caught my eye this week as a charming breath of fresh air in to an existing building now converted to a children's centre. Once a market place, the buildings location within the living heart of the town of Alcañiz, Spain, illustrates it as a perfect candidate for education and the centre of a community.

Spanish architects Miquel Marine Nunes and Cesar Rueda Bone had an enormous space to contend with and could have easily created a characterless barn by accident. They have cleverly created elements that do not touch the skin of the building but contain the activities with in.

This internal addition acts as the entrance and exit of the main hall, leads to spaces on different levels and facilitates the movement between them.  The design sought to keep its original spatial qualities and maintaining the old marketplace as a public space.