Laurel Building

Santa Cruz de Tenerife · Category: Architecture · Subcategory: Civil architecture · Year: 2001 · Authors: Felipe Artengo Rufino, Fernando Martín Menis, José María Rodríguez-Pastrana

On a corner of the Duggi neighbourhood we find this building designed in 2000 by architects Felipe Artengo, Fernando Martín Menis and José María Rodríguez-Pastrana and completed the following year. 

The building contains a programme of commercial premises on the ground floor and residences on the upper floors, with a recessed top floor serving as a crowning feature. 

The façade boldly faces the landscaped urban space of Plaza Militar, confronting it with a strong vertical order of broken concrete slab screens, like large scales, which protect from the setting sun. The openings are small vertical slits resembling cracks where mulberry wood joinery was installed. The building’s plinth is formed by exposed reinforced concrete walls that make up the walls of the two garage plazas.

Inside, above the plinth, two floors each contain a two-bedroom dwelling, and two upper floors are grouped into a three-bedroom duplex, which also has the penthouse terrace assigned to it. A staircase, which becomes private on the upper floors, and a small hydraulic lift form the vertical communication core, which is lit and ventilated through a skylight on the roof.

This is a building of a unified character where the strength of its façade harmonises well with the lush Indian laurels of the square in front.

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