Interpretation and information center of the Salinas de Ullóo.

Salinas de Ullóo is a natural place located in the municipality of Vilaboa, in Pontevedra. The antecedents of the Salinas de Ulloó date back to the reign of Felipe IV in the 17th century in 1637. They began to be exploited by the Jesuit College of Pontevedra in 1694 and reached great importance in the following years. Today, this area is included in the Natura 2000 Network of Galicia, with unique Atlantic vegetation, and a refuge for native and migratory birds.

In these lands of Ullóo is a farm in which the exploiters of these salt mines lived, the Jesuits, formed by two large houses of stone ashlar masonry of good invoice, which have of connection a great perimeter wall forming an ample inner patio with vegetation.

In this area, an Interpretation and Information Center of the Salinas de Ullóo will be developed, making its history known, focusing on salt, production process and elaboration; and showing the richness of the natural place.

There is no other way but to begin this interpretive path at sea. Point at which the productive process of salting is born. The access to the interpretive physical content, the building, is oriented on the one hand to the sun of the east, and on the other, to the place in which the salt mines are embedded; so that, as visitors head to the building they contemplate the landscape and assimilate the information acquired.

One of the elements to enhance is the interior garden that is created between both houses that connects with the path born in the sea, playing with an organic line and breaking with the marked geometry of architecture, as evocation of water, flowing element, that of life and connects sea and architecture.

The center is presented in two buildings with different uses. The access is made in continuity with the path or “canal” that directs us to the entrance of the main building, and as we ascend we can contemplate the natural beauty of the Salinas.

The main building (298.56m2) will be intended for a specific use, closely related to the interpretation center itself, organized on three levels, housing information area, toilets, permanent and temporary exhibition rooms, model room, audiovisuals and classroom multifunction for the development of workshops and other activities;

The second building (237.43m2), divided into three spaces, will be intended for a more general use and will house on the one hand, the administration area, and on the other, assembly hall and cafeteria, which can have a completely independent use. of the interpretation center.

When tackling the design, concepts such as maintaining elements of historical and cultural importance deserving of preservation were taken into account, so in these rooms the intervention will be minimal, leaving them almost naked, being themselves the exhibition element. On the other hand it is intended to mark the difference between the existing volume and the new intervention, as an example the roof, which following the pattern of the initial, differentiated by the roofing material, zinc, and its placement: high above the existing walls thanks to metal profiles HEB . Other elements to highlight are the private areas, in which volumes will be created as a "box" that house and mark the privacy of these, while differentiating themselves from the architecture that contains them. Finally, all these spaces have good natural lighting with windows of various sizes, and doors in the form of openings that allow interior-exterior communication and a subtle play with the entry of light that differentiates spaces.

In short, 535.99 m2 of built area spread over two buildings, with different uses and linked by materials: maple wood, granite slabs, Viroc fiber cement panels, white paint; games of height in the ceilings, natural lighting, interior-exterior relationship of the environment and the building. Differentiating characteristic elements of the existing architecture such as the fireplaces, entrance stairs and arch of the main building intervening lightly to highlight them.