In this edition, the goal was to provide the old San Juan de Puerto Rico with a new cruise terminal, as well as to redefine the coastal area and its public spaces. The first award went to the ESALA 5 team, from the Edinburgh School of Architecture in the United Kingdom.

We spoke with Javier Sáez, team member of the School of Architecture of the University of Navarra.

Congratulations on this recognition, what does it mean to you?
Thank you very much. We have received the award with great enthusiasm and it has been a boost to our work. It is the first contest that the three of us have done together, although we have worked together on other projects, we are happy to have won second place in this first adventure.

Tell us about challenge, the goal that presented the competition.
The challenge was that the intervention should be understood from both spheres, the sea and the city. That's why we had to work with scale, proportion and materials to reconcile the structure of the old town of San Juan with the large cruise ships that come to its shores (which can reach 70m). 

What does your proposal consist of?
We were asked to build a new cruise terminal for the city of Puerto Rico. The proposal tries to create a door. A door that is born as a place. A place hidden in a stone. Three stones that concentrate the blue through their large vertical openings. Three open and compact spaces, three squares stranded in the middle of the sea to give life to the urban center. Three stones facing the city and the landscape. Three beacons that complete the profile of the city of Puerto Rico, like those that once defended it. We were in a very privileged position, the starting point to discover the city and at the same time the place to say goodbye.

What were the phases of the process: from conception to execution?
The team formed by Patxi, Natxo and I try to work in a very natural way. First of all, we imagine the place and analyze the sensations it transmits, in this way we look into our own experience to find what we can contribute. At the beginning they are usually diffuse sensations such as tension, strength or relaxation... and to them we associate sounds, aromas, textures, etc... This is how we start the work and we develop it according to these first impressions. In the project the walls are folded to enclose a space collected and pure. An intimate space, of greetings and farewells, a space of meditation, of deep looks that precede all departures. It is a piece of sky, a reflection of the sea and a postcard.

What difficulties did you encounter and how did you solve them?
In the particular case of this competition, the main difficulty was that the proposal should be sensitive to the historic center and at the same time provide a solution to the growing passenger traffic that the city receives. We solved it through a space where, thanks to these three small squares, the urban atmosphere and the landscape are intertwined.

How has what you have learned at the School served you during your years as students?
There is never a single answer to an enclave, so we are always choosing between different paths. It is a constant difficulty, intrinsic to the architect's work that we face thanks to the strategies learned during our years of training at the School, and that we hope to be able to continue improving.

Do you know some of the other proposals coming from other architecture schools, and what do you think of them?
In general we have found very interesting proposals that have made us reflect again on the project. As grade it should be said, in my opinion, that the position of the terminal of the first award of the competition, although it is original, is very exposed to the waves. But in any case the development of this and all the projects is of a high standard.

I imagine it will have been an opportunity for the exchange of ideas.
Mainly the first steps usually lead to brainstorming. We also work from different places, Patxi is in Madrid and Natxo in Qatar which forces us to be in permanent contact. You can imagine the exchange of ideas through Whatsapp, Skype, Facebook, etc .... It's crazy but we really enjoy it.