Desert City / Garciagerman Arquitectos

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Text description provided by the architects. Desert City is a celebration of xerophytic plants and the production of a whole culture of interests and events around them. The project proposes an educational, sustainable and ecological complex in which to overlap activities that range from the exhibiting, growing and breeding of cactus from all over the world in a large garden and greenhouse, to housing an array of leisure activities such as presentations, small conventions, workshops or exhibitions. The large building contains, besides the greenhouse and exhibition/sales space, restaurant, shop, storage, and office areas. These activities are sheltered by a big lightweight container that responds, in terms of scale and materiality, to the near presence of the A-1 Highway. A “billboard-building”, parallel to the road, organized internally by a sequence of symmetries organized around a cloister-like cactus garden, which receives newcomers, and the greenhouse space, covered by a cable roof designed according to the logic of tensegrity structures.