Alcalá Street, one of Madrid's longest and most emblematic thoroughfares, is home to some of the city's most representative buildings and monuments. Upon reaching the Simancas neighborhood, where the project is located, the street shows a marked contrast: to the north, a predominantly residential area; to the south, a more industrial setting. 

It is in this context that the project from the outside with the intention of sheltering from the surrounding buildings, highlighting its specificity and uniqueness, while generating new public, social, and urban scenarios. 

By manipulating the terrain, the aim is to transfer the movement of the street to a new dynamism, materialized in the form of place. This is articulated through four strategic parts of the program, which shape the topography of the site and define the entrances and exits: two main ones, connected to Alcalá Street, and one secondary one. 

From these four parts emerge main strips that divide public and private space, thus allowing for the configuration of the place. These pieces have blurred boundaries towards the interior, where the public parts of the program are located, in contrast to the more defined boundaries towards the exterior, where the private spaces are located. 

The goal to create a protected public space by training that house both public uses (facing the place) and private uses (located on the other side of the strip). 

In contrast to the stereotypical landscape created, a square piece measuring 60x60 meters rises up, with a lighter and more tectonic character. This piece, with its ethereal presence, rests on four structural cores—three of which are vertical communication cores—that make up the landscape formed by mounds and landscaped roofs. This floor plan is aligned with the level of Alcalá Street. 

On this topography, the architecture partially dissolves, giving rise to an intermediate space where architecture and landscape merge. In this transition, the terrain is transformed into a continuous plane where vegetation evolves progressively: from leave grass leave the edges to denser species as it approaches the place, in combination with the trees that emerge from it. 

In this way, a protected public space is created: an urban forest that responds both to social needs and to the sensitivity of the place. 

The square section, which forms the first floor, shapes the elevation facing Calle Alcalá. This is where the restoration workshops, the main element of the program, are located, with access via the vertical communication cores. 

This piece was created with the intention of transforming the linear layout of the Collections Center—where works are collected, restored, and stored—into a circular arrangement that optimizes its functioning. Its geometry therefore promotes a functional and efficient flow in the transit and handling of the artworks. 

This Issue constructed from a three-dimensional spatial truss. As the element that embodies the uniqueness of project, it has been conceived as a square of light suspended in the middle of the forest. 

Given its use as a workshop space, a double skin is used. The first, a curtain wall, allows solar incidence to be controlled through different types of glass. The second, more exterior, defines the elevations and filters the light: from the outside, its transparency is subtle, while from the inside it allows a entrance of natural light, essential for work the workshops. This light and permeable envelope also promotes ventilation. 

Finally, priority has been given to the efficient functioning of the program, with a differentiated but complementary circulation between people and works. The works follow a silent and continuous exterior route that crosses the basement and ascends through the cores to the elevated square space. People, on the other hand, move through the interior, across the place the generated landscape. In this way, movement acquires an orderly and balanced rhythm, in which each element—human, material, built, or natural—finds its place without interference. 

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