NORTHERN IRELAND 2005 (with Matos Gameiro/ Carlos Crespo arquitectos)
The North Antrim Coast pierces the sea, confronting it with violent and determined scarps that surprise the plateau in its waving movement. From the top of the cliffs we attend two different and opposing realities: of the demure, domesticated and perennial horizontality of the flat and cultivated lands that lay over the abrupt, harsh and upright cliff, constantly changing, conforming the brutal transition between land and sea. Paradoxically, it is in the most vigorous movement that we can find the greatest frailty, as its contours slowly adapt to the persistence of the wind and the onslaughts of the sea, forming through the ages different accidents and relives in constant recharacterization. The horizon defines itself in a single stroke, mercilessly, without hesitations. The fold is immediate and frighteningly final.
Some buildings that punctuate the cliff in this coast, have been erected as a reflexion of man transforming desire and capacity, as significant and guiding landmarks, attempting to understand the scarp, the sea and its vastness. It’s that understanding that allows the noble gesture and the magical dream that we repeatedly observe along the shore. In all we recognize the moment in which they fold the cliff to fly over the sea, forcing the abyss vertigo. They all express the desire to participate in such a grand gesture. In all we recognize the dream. From all we admire its logic and sense.
We’re interested, in sum, in the strong presence of the site. It is our goal to accentuate the cliff experience as an autonomous and constant value in all of the Causeway Coast. We propose to anticipate the course of the visit, integrating it in the building experience, creating a new dramatic and revealing angle, on the limit of a building-bridge, built at the scale of the cliff that surveys the cut coast. The arrival is done through a wood of oak trees that protect from the winds, through slowing paths that hide the topographic fold recognition, until the building’s entry. This building will be projected in the sea direction. In the end, over the emptiness, on the amphitheatre, we confront ourselves with the cut coast, at one time, in a way which allows a dramatic understanding and reading of its existence. Two squares organize the fluxes and courses around the building: the lower square is the visitor arrival and departure nexus, connecting to the upper (institutional) level through a ramp that contains the esplanade patio and to the lower level directly to the commercial area; and the upper square, near the mini-bus base, organizing the Causeway tours, both ways. The building is constructed according to two distinct models. Of the continuity and of the discontinuity.