The San Fermín neighborhood is an urban island, historically suffocated by the M-40 infrastructure belt and confronted by massive facilities that turn their backs on it, such as the Caja Mágica. In this context of physical isolation, but supported by an incredibly strong neighborhood fabric, the project requires designing a 1,600 sqm Youth Space that rejects institutional rigidity. A true social condenser is demanded: a dynamic and appropriable container that transcends passive leisure to become a tool for learning, self-management, and civic encounter. The challenge is not to erect a simple building, but to generate an inclusive social infrastructure and an urban threshold capable of stitching the river edge, offering young people a stage for collective expression and belonging.
The proposal responds to this challenge by radicalizing the geometry through the manipulation of the poché. The building emerges as a sculpted mass of exposed white brick, a protective shell against the hostile scale of the city, whose thickness strategically absorbs the structure and technical services. This massive hollowing out through the poché liberates the heart of the project: large, continuous boxes of air, bathed by crevices of zenithal light, where a profound material duality bursts forth.