SITUATION: Calle Guadalcobacín, Ronda (Málaga). >>Open in GOOGLE MAPS
DATES: competition (2012)
CLIENTS: Ronda City Council
ARCHITECTS: José Antonio Carbajal Navarro, Nicolás Carbajal Ballell and Rodrigo Carbajal Ballell
COLLABORATING ARCHITECTS: Eva Muñoz Romero and Fernando Moreno Humanes
The site chosen for the construction of both buildings, bus station and library, is based on one of the busiest access of Ronda, Guadalcobacín street, a way of heavy and slow traffic. Vehicles and pedestrians pass through a railway level crossing to enter or leave the city. In their margins sports and educational facilities, supermarkets, spaces that seem to generate an intense activity. Even the site itself is used as parking of heavy trucks. There is a lack of calm, spaces for take a break. Call it the flip side of the “enlightened” Ronda, quiet and gentle, the Ronda of “El Tajo” and the bridges, the square and the Parador, the postcards and the travelers.
In this context, our project tries to place the station in a way that allow buses and passengers to enter or leave it easily and, at the same time, find the best position for the library. Both buildings, the first noisy and bustling, a place of transit, and the second silent, a place to stay, will have to live together. The station will have a concrete canopy that protects the twelve required bays and platforms from the rain and the sun, and a closed, controlled space that houses station services. The bays, arranged as a fan and with access in clockwise direction, are separated by platforms for boarding and disembarking. It is possible to reach the platforms from the waiting area or directly from the street.
From the hall, passengers could see the arrivals and departures of buses. In the opposite side there will be ticket offices, shops and newsstand, luggage lockers, restrooms, cafeteria and management offices. Management and ticket offices will have independent access from outside and the cafeteria can operate regardless of station opening hours and can serve both to passengers and library users.
Moreover, there will be a workshop for buses, a small machinery room close to management area and a backup generator. We also have planned moving the existing transformer station to a place close to the main road.
We think that the annulus-sector shaped hall and services area will function as a an acoustic protection against the noisy area of buses. Behind this annulus we have placed the access to the library, a cylindrical building, again thinking that the convex surface will improve the behaviour against noise. By the same reason, the library is designed as a closed cylinder, receiving natural light mainly from top. The last strategy against noise is the plantation of trees and bushes between the station and the library and beside the railway.
As a result, the library will be an inward-looking building, that is opened to outside in very specific points. It will have two levels. The ground floor will house the hall, with direct access to a multipurpose room, the control and information desk and, once inside, the children reading room, serials and newspapers area, reasearch offices, management area and restrooms. Upstairs users will find the media library and the main reading room, receiving northern light through skylights as we said.
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