The Olympic Ice Arena was the result of an important international competition for a building that was to house the first Olympic event ever in the Pyrenees Mountains, a two-icerings Olympic pavilion to celebrate hockey, figure skating, short track and curling competitions, and simultaneously be a recreational ice center.
The site is in northern Spain, in Huesca province. It is the Spanish landscape of the mountains, one of the idiosyncratic images of Europe. When we visited that place, immediately thought about the first Winter Olympic Games in history, held in 1924 at the Alps. At that time, all the tournaments were held in the outdoors, at the foot of Montblanc in Chamonix. When the competitors played hockey outdoors, it was magical the way both players and public experienced the nature. We can not do that today because sportive activities are hyper regulated, buildings became extremely technical and accomplish innumerable requirements.
When we started to work whit institutions, stakeholders and users we perceived other ancient powerful reality, present from the origin of the Olympics in Greece, obviously present also in 1924 and currently persistent: the fascination for both competition and triumph. There are people who devote their entire youths —that is, probably their entire lives— not to get an Olympic medal necessarily, but just to have the chance to get one Olympic medal. And these are the people who support the idea of having recurrent peaceful happy international meetings of nations.
We wanted to build something that would try to answer these two questions: first, the landscape, the city, the history; and then, the Olympic aspiration. We wanted a place for all these dreams. Focused on the idea of playing hockey outdoors, we wanted something more than a sustainable construction, but a place with no oppositions, a soft place. So this is a building with no façade, no vertical boundaries. We wanted content with no container. The content was able to take the strength of the nearby Oroel Mount and the Pyrenees peaks, and met directly the ground without any sort of façade.
A thin membrane is, at the same time, structure, façade, roof and technical systems. It contains the entire air conditioning system —included into the main structure to avoid the air conditioning ducts that typically are all around the ice arenas interiors—, and the lighting, sound and security systems. The importance of the membrane is revealed in the interior, where it organizes successfully all the functions and circulations in
the pavilion. In fact, the glass membrane is the only constructive detail of the building. Under that delicate efficient shell there is only concrete, brick and ice, with no constructive details.
A thin membrane is, at the same time, structure, façade, roof and technical systems. It contains the entire air conditioning system —included into the main structure to avoid the air conditioning ducts that typically are all around the ice arenas interiors—, and the lighting, sound and security systems. The importance of the membrane is revealed in the interior, where it organizes successfully all the functions and circulations in
the pavilion. In fact, the glass membrane is the only constructive detail of the building. Under that delicate efficient shell there is only concrete, brick and ice, with no constructive details.
The membrane is perceived as a soft crystal of ice, and it must be crossed in order to accede —like in a natural experience, like a physical interaction with the landscape itself. This experience not only means that it is possible to see the landscape; it involves perceiving the physical substances on it: natural light, sun, water, or snow, because when it is raining the user is under the rain, or under the snow if it is snowing. In the winter, the sun comes into the building crossing layers of snow. Sometimes the sun enters through the glass dome, drawing on the floor shadows of the snow that has accumulated on top of the building. The perception of the landscape is really intense.
