Location: Peñalba de Castro, Spain

Design Team: Tejedor Linares Arquitectos

Area: 1,325 m²

Year: 2025

Photographs: Fernando Alda

Design Features: The 1,325 m² Visitor Reception Center of Colonia Clunia Sulpicia stands on a hillside below the Roman city in Peñalba de Castro, Burgos. Tejedor Linares Arquitectos treats it not as an isolated object placed before the ruins, but as an interpretation of the same topographic intelligence that once located Clunia on the high plateau. The terrain itself becomes the first exhibit in the visitor's encounter with the ancient city.

Inserted along the existing route toward the Roman Theatre, the building establishes a measured ascent from valley to archaeological site. From afar, its low horizontal form appears as a geometric adjustment to the slope. Up close, the entrance emerges beneath a thick planted edge, drawing visitors from the exposed plateau into a sheltered interior before courts, water and framed openings return their attention to Peña Sobaños and the Arandilla valley.

Vegetation continues across the roof as an accessible belvedere that can host outdoor programmes and an archaeological garden. Its geometry reflects the structure below, while the depth of the growing medium allows surrounding herbaceous species to colonise the surface over time and improves bioclimatic performance. Seasons, wind and planting therefore remain active authors of the building's presence in the landscape.

Inside, ochre-red concrete provides a quiet continuous ground for pale timber doors, screens, exhibition elements and ceiling panels. A central water court recalls the subterranean water system that supplied the Roman city. Low eaves, deep openings and long horizontal views repeatedly adjust the visitor's eye level, presenting the plateau, archaeological route and sky as carefully edited fragments.

Reception, exhibition and adaptable activity spaces occupy a compact rectangular structure, while the exterior ramp, roof and interior circulation form one continuous sequence. High energy-efficiency targets, reductions in operational and embodied carbon, and life-cycle assessment limit the intervention within a fragile archaeological setting. What the project ultimately creates is less a gate to the ancient city than a gradual passage from the contemporary surface into deeper historical ground.

Design Team: Tejedor Linares Arquitectos is led by architects Antonio Tejedor Cabrera and Mercedes Linares Gómez del Pulgar and is based in Seville. Their work moves between architectural practice, heritage research and university teaching, spanning archaeological sites, cultural buildings, historic restoration, landscape and public space.

The studio is particularly concerned with how contemporary architecture enters places shaped by multiple periods of time. Its projects often begin with topography, surviving structures and historic routes, allowing new visitor facilities to mediate between remains and present use. Previous work includes the Roman Theatre Visitor Centre in Málaga and the restoration and interpretation centre at Córdoba Gate in Carmona. The Clunia project received the principal Architecture and Urbanism Award of Castilla y León for 2024–2025.