The auditorium’s duality arises from the contradiction inherent in its site. Situated on the edge of town, the auditorium is caught between two realities: the beauty of the coastal landscape and the harsh and fragmented urban context.
On the one hand, the building’s volumetrics are defined by the immediate conditioning landscape factors of the coastal profile, the horizon and the shoreline. The concave surfaces of the seaward-facing facades represent the tensions that exist between architecture and context. Thus, the building naturally establishes a dialogue with the landscape and its elements: the light and the sea directly facing the building.
On the other hand, interaction with the town occurs antagonistically. The strict and clear geometry of the facade that faces the neighbouring buildings is a mark of urban confrontation in which the building sets its boundaries.
The main programme of the building consists of two multipurpose halls – seating audiences of one thousand and of three hundred respectively – enveloped in such a way that the resulting volume appears as a unitary and compact ensemble.
The interior space is composed by dilations and compressions tangential to a circulation route whose only interruptions are views of the outside. This spatial sequence links the main areas to each other and seeks to intensify perception of the different geometries of the surfaces and openings that make up the building.
The Águilas auditorium is simultaneously a simple and striking design. It acts on the landscape both forcefully and naturally, in an apparently effortless manner.

Competition. First Prize. Built.
Images @ Simon Menges