Luis Fernández-Galiano   The architecture of RCR (Rafael Aranda, Carme Pigem and Ramón Vilalta) combines romantic rauxa with rational rigor. Based in Olot, the capital of La Garrotxa – a Pre-Pyrenean region in Catalonia, filled with extinct volcanoes and pleasant landscapes

Richard Ingersoll   They did not gag or blind-fold me, but for two days I was a guest of a group of architectural extremists, in the lost horizon of Olot. This small city rests amid the remains of a few extinct volcanoes at the foot of the Pyrenees between Catalonia and

Carlos Jiménez   Aranda Pigem Vilalta – RCR Arquitectes – are magicians of mineral and natural discoveries. Their architecture conjures sensual intimations, refractions, and densities from the most elemental material conditions, whether a single sheet of Cor-ten stee

RCR Arquitectes   Spain   Immerse in one of the exceptional natural spots common to the province of Gerona, the town of Olot is particularly careful when it comes to its expansion on the surrounding areas in order to avoid destroying on its growth that which constitutes one

RCR Arquitectes   Spain   With laws of its own a garden stages fragments of nature in a delimited space. A plot of land between the old cart path that connected Olot with Santa Pau and the new traffic thoroughfare that covers the same distance now performs as the gate to the

RCR Arquitectes   Spain   A captivating landscape asks for a panoramic house. This house, suspended and calm, looks over the views from its vantage point on the edges of Olot. Access is through a void between the two parallel volumes of the project. The void crosses the hou

RCR Arquitectes   Spain   The church and the town hall are the only public buildings of Riudaura, a small village with a population under 500 near Olot. The town wanted to enlarge its public realm with a new space for culture, leisure and sports activities. The site chosen wa

RCR Arquitectes   Spain   The River Fluvià begins in the mountains of Collsacabra, south of the city of Olot, and flows into the Mediterranean, in the Ampurdán marshlands, after covering seventy kilometers through the region of La Garrotxa.Almost hidden amid the poplars, the

RCR Arquitectes   Spain   The high-school is located on the fringes of the coastal town of Sant Feliu de Guíxols, some one hundred kilometers north of Barcelona. The peripheral context, still changing, suggested an introverted, self-absorbed solution. Two parallel branches, o

RCR Arquitectes   Spain   The campus of Montilivi, south of the historic center of Gerona, imposes the rationality of its grid on a landscape of gently rolling hills and wooded masses. Starting from one of the plots thus defined, the new Law School is inserted with the intent

RCR Arquitectes   Spain   Located at the bend of a road that joins Camprodón with Olot, the town of La Canya is growing in the form of residential developments similar to those around large cities. However, its location in a rural region has permitted a comfortable combinatio

RCR Arquitectes   Spain   In the Volcanic Natural Park of La Garrotxa, in Les Preses, near Olot, there is a unique place: a sea of rocks that is the product of the basaltic mass of the Croscat volcano and the result of man’s hard struggle to own a piece of land to harvest. A

RCR Arquitectes   Spain   The urban park of La Arboleda (meaning grove) is in the west access to the town of Begur, on the coast of Gerona. Once a natural space with a stream and a wooded area next to the town, this zone now acts as a hinge between the new expanded areas and

RCR Arquitectes   Spain   Located on the edge of a slope, the house, 1.5 meters below the top level of the field, wishes to provide spaces that protect the tenants’ independence and also their life in common, keeping a balance with the constant presence of nature. Its strateg

RCR Arquitectes   Spain   A small detour from the road that links the centers of Olot and Gerona, at the height of Montagut, goes up by the foothills of the mountain until it reaches a haphazard series of constructions. Among these – in most cases recently built single-family

RCR Arquitectes   Spain   Playing with a wooden piece set for kids one can obtain varied compositions, which transferred to the field of architecture, somehow match the distribution of volumes and spaces during the creation process of a building. Each one of the colors covers

RCR Arquitectes   Spain   The house offers the opportunity to recover the dry pond of an old mill located on the outskirts of Llagostera, a few kilometers from the coastal town of Sant Feliu de Guíxols. The location of the new construction, along the water’s edge, determines

RCR Arquitectes   Spain   An old and walled in farmhouse was the place chosen for a new restaurant, with a design that combines metaphors of the rural and the culinary world. Three warehouses placed along a basilica-type floor plan have undergone a meticulous refurbishment, b

RCR Arquitectes   Spain   The project stems from the desire to build a swimming pool in a markedly rural context, on a site where different types of traditional structures – a farm, granaries and a mill – stand side by side. The specific characteristics of the place end up t

RCR Arquitectes   Spain   The main objective of this house, lying on the hillside of one of the volcanoes of Olot, is to offer its tenants good views and, at the same time, obtain as much surface on ground floor as possible and as much garden space as possible. To achieve th

RCR Arquitectes   Spain   If the Les Cols restaurant showed how the interior of a farmhouse could be transformed with steel and glass, the project to build five pavilions for evening rest intends, through the use of pure forms, to achieve the superposition of textures and abs

RCR Arquitectes   Spain   This mixed-use structure is included in the plan – promoted by the City Council – for the recovery of the interiors of the urban blocks of the Ensanche of Cerdá in Barcelona, and goes up in the last plot available on Conde Borrell street, in the San

RCR Arquitectes   Spain   These new cellars for private wine production and consumption are located in an outstanding setting, at the head of a valley beneath a mountain in a protected area. Along apath that connects different types of buildings – including a chapel –, unfold

RCR Arquitectes   Spain   The studio of RCR Arquitectes in Olot, Gerona, has been under transformation over more than one decade. In 2004 the architects bought the old Barberí foundry building, then in ruins, with the objective of transforming it gradually into a workspace th

RCR Arquitectes   Spain   Besalú, a town of rich medieval history, is approximately 25 kilometers from Olot, between the Fluviá and the Capellades rivers. The site for the nursery is on the border between the town and the countryside, separated by a filter of PVC cylinders of

RCR Arquitectes   Belgium   La topografía de Flandes se caracteriza, como la del resto de Bélgica, por la ausencia casi total de accidentes geográficos, lo que convierte al país en una gran planicie. Cerca de Hofheide, este vasto paisaje forma una cuenca pantanosa, siendo en es

RCR Arquitectes   France   The museum dedicated to the artist Pierre Soulages in?Rodez, his home town, is in the very central Foirail park: an almond-shape public space, a few meters from the old city and from the square of the Gothic cathedral, the most important building of

RCR Arquitectes   France   The new art Center La Cuisine is a unique space for encounter that takes gastronomy, conceived as an integral activity linked to the territory and to the agricultural and livestock activities, as starting point for artistic creation. The castle of Nè