Location: Balsapintada, Spain

Design Team: COR Architecture + Design

Area: 724.05 m²

Year: 2025

Photography: Milena Villalba

Design Features: Balsapintada Cultural Center stands in a village of roughly 1,719 residents within Fuente Álamo de Murcia, Spain. The existing building had grown as three volumes from different periods, leaving an ageing facility whose frontage no longer reflected its community role. Following a participatory process, COR Architecture + Design retained the main structure and reorganised 724.05 m² of cultural, recreational and civic space as a shared living room for the town.

A pale blue-green skin of perforated metal wraps the existing volumes. A continuous roofline, plinth and colour palette bring the three phases into one architectural reading. At the entrance, the skin lifts away from the old walls to form a generous portico and shaded edge. Red structural accents and signage sit within the light mesh, giving the centre a recognisable presence across the square while keeping an everyday scale.

The envelope also moderates climate. Its perforations temper direct sun, filter daylight and extend shade into the public realm, while added insulation and renewed facade elements improve thermal performance. Access control and energy-management systems support the building's nearly zero-energy ambitions, aligning visual transformation with comfort and long-term operation.

Inside, movable partitions and deep blue curtains adapt the multipurpose hall to performances, classes, gatherings and children's activities. Exposed ducts and pale yellow trusses retain the direct character of a public facility. Single-level circulation lets rooms open independently, while new exits strengthen their connection to the square and the seniors' association remains in place. A light outer layer thus recalibrates light, heat, identity and shared life without erasing the building residents already know.

Design Team: COR Architecture + Design was founded in 2006 by Jesús Olivares and Miguel Rodenas and is based in Alicante, with offices in Valencia, Elche and Albacete. Both founders studied at the University of Alicante and hold master's degrees in Sustainable Architecture and Urbanism. The practice works across cultural buildings, housing, interiors and urban renewal, with a sustained focus on adaptive reuse and nearly zero-energy design. The centre was selected for the 2026 Spanish Architecture Awards.