Every project is a construction of relationships, not only physical ones but also perceptual ones, between its parts and what already exists: between what is proposed and what is there, between what is found and what is needed, so that development can begin from them. These relationships are what gradually give it form, establishing an ongoing dialogue with what already exists, incorporating it as part of the project.

The siting of the new Cultural Complex of the National University of Moreno demands finding a relationship between the campus and the city. Starting from a new path that links the campus’s interior circulation with Plaza Buján, the building folds back on itself to receive pedestrians arriving from both directions: from this arises its positioning on the southern portion of the site and its broken front, which marks the entrance and opens its main façade to the North.

Beyond its physical boundaries, the project extends its relationships to incorporate the exterior spaces as part of itself, achieving a definitive anchoring of the building within its site.

The fact that the future building will be constructed in phases determined a series of independent volumes for each program, assembled around a shared space that unites and articulates them as the Complex’s General Hall. This is the project’s most dynamic and outward-facing space, a kind of covered plaza with the qualities of an exterior space and visual links to the surrounding green areas, while at the same time bringing together all of the Complex’s Common Areas. Each of the programmatic volumes (Library, Great Hall/Auditorium, and Radio and TV Studios) is a rectangular block aligned with the site’s geometries, and each can be built in a later phase without affecting the aesthetics or functioning of the whole. Although the construction order of each phase is largely interchangeable, it is suggested that the Library be built first, so that the Complex’s North-facing front is complete along its full length. While the building’s plan appears fragmented into sectors, the roof is conceived as a single gabled surface that unifies the geometry of the whole.

Constructively, priority has been given to the use of technologies that are widely available and proven in our context: the Hall and each of the programmatic volumes are conceived as mixed structures, with reinforced concrete framing clad in enclosure masonry. The roof is conceived as a lightweight metal structure resting on the perimeter of the volumes.

Once the project is complete, everything should appear natural, as if it were impossible to distinguish the existing paths from the new ones, the already-planted trees from the new plantings, the pedestrian entrances from the campus or from the city, the vehicle parking, the interior spaces from the exterior ones, as if it had all been conceived in a single act, forming part of one and the same project.