Bakio Sports Centre / ACXT

Architects: ACXT
Location: Bakio, Spain
Client: Bakio City Council
Constructed Area: 5,200 sqm
Budget: 3,9 M EURO (US $4,93 M)
Project year: 2006
Photographer: Cesar San Millán

The building is situated in a small and floodable valley open to the sea in the coastal town of Bakio. It takes up the Northwest side of the site, leaving two free areas, one in the West, through which access is carried out and the relation of the building with the public is established, and another in the South, a bit higher with regard to the entrance and the adjoining football ground, which will be used as a solarium for the swimming pools.

From the first analysis of the site, the aim was to adapt the treatment of the building scale to the popular and low density new residence architecture in the surroundings, due to which, a three-element volumetric play was planned, making use of the natural slope of the land.

The façade closings were decided bearing in mind the adaptation to the scarce budget as well as their expressive force, considering the building as an abstract object which is part of a landscape rather than as a figurative reality representing itself.

The translucent cellular polycarbonate, in the public perimeter areas, resolves the thermal insulation and together with the birches, the protection from the western sun. At night it turns into a lighthouse which crowns the valley.

About ACXT

In a cultural environment in which creativity is often likened to personal genius, ACXT is convinced of the potential benefits of combining two separate levels of analysis in the creative process. On the one hand, there is the particular contribution of the individual and, on the other, the collective results of working in groups. In ACXT individuals assume personal responsibility for the development of a project within the framework of an association of professionals. We feel part of a team and of a collective effort that enriches us at a personal level and challenges each one of us to improve as individuals, but also affords us the freedom to give expression to our own proposals. Those responsible for each project are recognised as individual creators and therefore each project is also analysed within the context of the personal development of those who conceived it. As a consequence, the way in which projects are conceived is not the exclusive domain of one person, especially when these are analysed as finished objects. Common aspects do exist but they have more to do with the process and the way the work is delivered than with the final result. We are made richer through a permanent collaboration as professionals and at the same time we are guaranteed sufficient scope to take decisions in accordance with the characteristics of each situation within a system that ensures autonomy and freedom. Our work entails, therefore, an essential paradox, namely, how to reconcile the idea of personal creativity and working in a group.