The south of Gran Canaria is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Europe. The beach of Maspalomas is advertised on internet as a cruising place for a whole catalogue of sexual practices. Around a specific space with unique environmental features, a series of infrastructures has arisen to satisfy the needs of all these “adventurers”. In this video installation Dias & Riedweg explore the journey towards homogeneous spaces around singular spaces where the landscape functions as an adjunct of desire.

White Arkitekter’s project reconverted an industrial area of the Danish city of Kastrup into a leisure space based around a bathing platform. Conceived as a sculpture on which to walk, the platform is connected with the land by a walkway, like a kind of grandstand for bathers in a pleasurable experience based on bathing and sun.

The installations are located in the centre of Santa Lucía, aimed at equipping the area with a space for leisure to mitigate the hot summers in these higher altitudes in the centre of the island. Located in a spectacular landscape, in a notably agricultural surrounding with stone walls, terraces and pools integrated, on a smaller scale, into the mountainous relief of the central massif. The building wishes to partake in this symbiosis between nature and artifice; building-territory in a dialogue of walls, terraces, vegetation and water, in the measured scale of the domestic: the building leads the spectator along a discontinuous closure that hides and opens glimpses of the landscape in fine lines, depending on the angle of vision, to introduce it into the fold in ramp, in a path between stone walls and corten steel, forcing a broken path that finally opens up in a viewpoint over the landscape and access to the swimming pool platforms. In the extension of the terraces, the stony volume closes in on itself, returning to a smaller scale in a delimited open space that encloses different uses and services. On the outside, from the containers of the swimming pools, the contention walls are staggered, underscoring the mountainous landscape, soaking up the building in the territory, in a tectonic language of stone, steel and wood.

The project proposes the construction of a few elements of a clearly artificial quality that upon proper installation would aid the water activities at the cove of Llop Marí, in Campello, Alicante.

Although the surroundings have been developed heavily, in this stretch the shore, which falls under the laws for the Protection of Public Property, boasts some magnificent natural rock formations, some of which give way to soft platforms connecting to the sea that allow easy access to the latter when the tide is calm.

The objective of the proposal is to encourage the enjoyment of bathing in the sea by providing the sense of security inspired by finding supporting elements, elements to hold on to, at a certain distance from the beach. The triangular geometry designed for the installation of these elements, and their positioning away from the land, suggests that it is possible to improve swimming conditions without any alteration of the natural elements of the coast.

The project also aspires to produce three vertical references at the site, which in their visualization arranged in the shape of a triangle, and with their soft daytime reflectiveness and nighttime positioning lighting will constitute a sort of artificial landscape that will bring out the best features of a beautiful, if under siege, spot of nature.

Location: Buenavista del Norte. Tenerife

Planned: 2001. Terminación

Bar: 104,80 m2

Pool: 294,00 m2

Resort: 841,40 m2

The basic aim of the remodelling of the existing swimming pool and its environs is to improve the conditions for the user and the image of the resort, correcting its environmental impact.

The priority of the project is the rehabilitation of the existing saltwater pool, removing all artificial additions and restoring its sides of natural rock.

The access slope is defined with several platforms that house the sun terraces and pool equipment. These platforms are “hard” in the areas farthest from the pool, and “soft”, made of wood, in the areas in contact with the pool.

The water of the pool is released naturally to the basaltic rock. The edge facing the sea is fitted with an invisible overflow outlet, creating a single line that divides the water of the pool and the water of the sea.

The facilities are built inside the peak, making use of a preexisting cave, behind a solid wall of basaltic masonry that runs all the way to the dry garden.

The building is divided into two parts and levels: the dressing rooms at the level of the sun terrace, and the bar at the poolside area. This area also features a wooden marquee.

Exhibits a series of photographic interventions in which she records the wild shores of Gran Canaria, La Palma and El Hierro, and how the population relates to and makes use of this natural environment.

In a city as saturated as Mumbai, the beach presents itself as one of the few open platforms suitable for mass gatherings. Thus, the concept of the beach varies according to need. Its western use as a leisure setting is preserved but enhanced by religious issues and practices.

The relationship between public and private act now seems to be a closed debate in western society, given that there appears to be an agreement that certain individual acts of a more intimate nature can be taken into the more social sphere. The capacity to register and record everything has inverted the concern, and now it is the public that seems to want to enter into the private.

Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía

Beach and crowds are the substance of Vitali’s photographs. In them, the artists reflects the tourist-consumption combination and its extreme voracity. His aerial views corroborate this relationship, and reinforce the shock value of the images.

Conceived as an installation, Arena (Sand) explores three elements of the process of erosion in their encounter and balance with the sea: pebbles, winkles and sand. Arena demands a previous theoretical development about the three elements of the erosion process as a means to understand the forms, the origin and the evolution of sand as an element configuring the landscape.

The origin of the installation comes from a collection of sand Alberto Luengo has been gathering for 30 years, consisting of around 1,600 samples of sand from all over the planet. Over time he has extended to other collections of pebbles and winkles, given their direct connection with the origin of sand.

Project: Dive Club Zagreb

Location: Anywhere

Project Date: 2001

Gross Surface Area Dive Club: ~ 500 M2

Program:/

1. New experience and feeling, move borders in architecture

2. Exploration of materials and geometry

3. Cost effectiveness, tourist point

4. Using the sun energy

5. Visual effects, educational asset

6. Socialization magnet

7. Sport, recreation

8. Cultural happenings (underwater theatre)

9. Zero gravity Club – if it is full of vacuum instead of water

The Diving Club is a water-full sphere made of stratified glass. When diving inside the sphere, people can watch birds, clouds, the city ... When seen from the outside, the image is inverse. And what about the inside-out?

The prejudices about material, form, content, function ... are broken – there are no lies – the transparency is veracious and logical. The project is of typology: it infers a certain degree of leisure, rebelliousness, acceptance, ... onto potential location.