Studio Banana TV interviews Piñera-Irisarri, authors of the fishermen sheds in Cangas, Galicia, Spain.
On the one hand, a pier that hosts multiple activities, with a range of pre-existing facilities amongst which the new fishermen’s sheds to be added might be just another individualised component. On the other hand, an urban scene in which the pier breakwater is already a public space, used spontaneously for marine events, a yacht club isolated from the boat ramp and the pier by a city street, a pedestrian path to the beach in summer, a large car park, etc., ultimately a rich environment with functional conflicts. Finally, but nevertheless incredibly relevant, is the potential impact of these buildings on the landscape, the problem of a screen generated alongside the estuary that could block off the Cangas township.
This project thus emerges at a point where nature merges with buildings, the city as a living space converges with the harbour as infrastructure, urban and engineered architecture as surprised looks, a modern evolution from a commencement in which human settlements reflected the specific conditions of each place and time, generated in their struggle to make a living.
We want a building that can respond to and partly resolve all of these issues. A building that goes beyond a constructed brief. Using the appropriate scale, it should be able to have and impose a presence, while at the same time being permeable and sensitive to the landscape and the diverse environmental conditions. A building that responds to its functional requirements, absorbing them optimally while at the same time providing a solution for urban functions and citizen demands in a public space that emerges on the pier in the manner of a watchtower overlooking the estuary.
The building strives to harmonise its presence as a public facility without interrupting the sense of permeability towards the landscape, while stitching the realm of professional sailors at the pier level with the world of leisure and promenades along the breakwater.
By linking city and landscape, citizens and culture, leisure and work… the project breaks through the city-harbour isolation, spreading its base in the manner of a ramp-square, emerging from it to provide a new urban zone for promenades and sport.
The sheds are clustered in series of three and four units, with an annex space also generated for services and outdoor work, thus avoiding conflicts with the flow of life along the pier but at the same time encouraging the idea of a public community building, making the maritime activity permeable to passers-by.
Transversal passageways are set between the sheds to provide access to the pier, where life goes on for the citizens of a town with close ties to the harbour, seaside walks, afternoon fishing, regattas, etc., in a place that organizes and influences the infrastructure.
This strategy, together with the materiality that shapes the sheds, achieves the desired permeability.
Paradoxically, a building with a volumetric commencement that increases the net volume of the wharf seems to reveal the landscape instead of the opposite, thanks to perforation of both the architectural sculpting and the nature of the material.
A building resolved in galvanized steel which, evoking the shipbuilding process, configures all of its parts using three hierarchical orders. The tubular structure defines the volumes with a modulation that has the same rhythm as the sheet metal skin attached to it.
Lattices with different degrees of density are used to achieve the unity of the building, all the intermediate spaces and the necessary visual permeability.
Attention to detail focuses primarily on the lattice gauge, the rhythm of its tie poles and the terseness of the sculpted volumes that generate the building’s desired presence.
Out thoughts about how to achieve a promenade-breakwater with an evocative capacity led to our choice of concrete with aggregate that largely consists of seashells from the canneries, the material on the seabed around the pier. To some extent, this shapes and consolidates the beach sediment.
