The commission, produced in an ideas competition, was for an extension of the municipal sports installations for the children’s and youth football academy in Soto de la Marina. The spectator stand corresponds to phase one of the planned extension work.

This building was to be located in a vague space left over between the football field and a housing complex. How to address this space, over and above the strict limits of the construction, was one more objective of the project: creating a place where there was none.

Since this is a public amenity, the project looks beyond its exclusively sporting use and, using topographic manipulation as a strategy, creates a small park with gently undulating forms, crossed by a path that introduces an alternative pedestrian route into the urban layout of the municipality.

The topography is created using the earth obtained by digging out the foundations. The building is partially buried and confined by this earth, softening the limit between the building and the park.

This reduces the impact of the new volume, adapts to the scale of the place, brings spectators closer to the pitch and protects the stand from prevailing winds off the sea.

On this new profile, the ramps are organised for spectators to access the stand and for players to enter the building, where the changing rooms are to be built in the next phase. The sequence leading from the ramps to a position overlooking the centre line of the pitch highlights the ritual of spectators arriving on match days.

On the side overlooking the field of play, the building responds to a logic guided entirely by questions of visibility, the dimensions and proportions of the stand, the distance to the pitch, accessibility, etc.

Atop the stand building is a shed roof that extends beyond the spectator zone to shelter the entrances, creating a place to meet before and after the match.

The structure is made up of a series of triangular prefabricated concrete frames on which the seating and the metal roof structure rest. Its austerity is the response to a very tight construction budget.

Inside, the rhythm marked out by the structure will modulate the various spaces, all of which will receive overhead light through the skylight that runs lengthwise through the building.