Elche Convention Centre

The Elche Conference Centre arises from a careful reading of the territory and of the historical and landscape elements that shape the city’s identity. Elche presents itself as a palimpsest where the memory of the ancient walled town, with its defensive and religious landmarks, emerges along the horizon line of the historic palm grove. This duality inspires a compact, abstract, and tectonic building, conceived as a new civic element connected to the landscape and the city’s collective memory.

The project is located at the boundary between the historic vegetation system and the contemporary city. This edge is understood as an active transition space. The building is not conceived as an isolated object, but as architecture of continuity, capable of articulating both worlds through a clear layout that extends the city’s traces and reinforces the pedestrian dimension of the surroundings. Access is provided through a large covered public plaza, which serves as a civic threshold and intermediate climatic space, blurring the boundary with the exterior thanks to the continuous floor plane that extends the urban space inward. Around this central void are arranged the auditoriums and multipurpose rooms, structured through a continuous vertical circulation that culminates in elevated spaces open to the palm grove landscape and views of the historic city centre.

The environmental strategy is based on passive principles suited to the Mediterranean climate. The volumetric compactness, the high thermal mass of the structure, and the ceramic envelope, combined with cross ventilation and solar chimneys, reduce energy demand and enhance interior comfort. The use of local ceramic materials reinforces this logic, providing durability, thermal inertia, and a timeless presence.

The proposal stems from the intention to create architecture that harmoniously dialogues with its surroundings, integrating history, landscape, and contemporary sustainability requirements. Its ceramic and tectonic volume inscribes itself in the territory as a new civic landmark that embraces and connects, generating spaces that foster collective life and environmental well-being. In this way, the building not only extends the city’s legacy but also provides a present with a vision for the future, consolidating an emblematic place for Elche.