The architect Jesús San Vicente, in collaboration with María Galán and Paula Gil de Bernabé, has placed first in the competition to build the heated swimming pools of Arenas de San Pedro, in Ávila province, within the sports complex annexed to the municipality’s football field. Their scheme prevailed over 26 other entries in addressing what the brief laid down with regard to circulations, surfaces, orientations, and energy saving.

The overall massing is determined by climate and sun conditions, the south facade brings in sunlight in winter and gives protection against it in summer. A solution involving facade walls and concrete cantilevers will give the building high thermal inertia.

Raising the main floor 1.8 meters through a gently sloping 30-meter ramp optimizes views of the Gredos mountain range. The roof’s inclined planes are coated in zinc so that rain and snow slide off easily. The cantilevers settle the matter of the meeting with the ground, and the pool installations go into the partly buried bottom level. This arrangement will facilitate execution of the slabs and walls that form the pool tanks. The structure of the two pool premises presents beams and pillars of laminated timber and slabs of thermochip boards, giving continuity to the spaces.