Serramar Tennis Club
by Bajet Giramé and Manuel Julià

Bajet Giramé were in charge of a project to transform a touristic compound in the coast of Montsià. During the preliminary phases, the client informed them that he would undertake an urgent task without architects: the restoration of four deteriorated tennis courts.

Montsià is a county located in Tarragona, Spain, characterised by ancient passages and resting places of transhumant cattle herders, known as lligallos.

The architects convinced him to draft an “express project” to improve the courts’ surrounding and to embellish the landscapes in the meantime.

The exterior spaces of a historical, rural construction (masía) had been reduced to residual interstices located between autonomous pieces for touristic use.

Four tennis courts, the terrace for a restaurant, a pool, and a solarium, all of which are excessively close to each other.

The building was currently surrounded by suburbs built in the 70s.

They suggested doing away with one of the tennis courts to increase the surface drainage in front of the masía.

Then, they used the large surfaces of the courts and the paths surrounding them to improve the flow of water.

As a result, water conduits were built to capture runoff during the seasonal bouts of rain, and to feed this water into an underground reservoir, used to irrigate the property’s green areas.

Taking the agricultural terraces in the surrounding territory as models, the project consolidated two large topographical platforms.

One includes the three tennis courts and the other, the area that encompasses the pool and the outside garden.

No soil was extracted during the construction. Instead, the terrain was shaped into terraces and the remains of the former courts were used to stabilize the new ones.

Above all, the constructive phase of the project involved delineating the borders of the platforms and the intervening space between them.

Permanent walkways, small corners, and a gently sloped ramp that connects these spaces to the football field in the lower level. These platforms function as the permanent settings for a series of changing activities.

For their construction, they used stone from Sénia that was used in all of its possible forms, thus avoiding the unnecessary generation of rubble.

Sourced from a quarry in Ulldecona only 10 km away.

To define important meeting spots, the project uses cut stone as ‘carpets’ of sorts. The fragments generated in the cutting of stone were repurposed to extend an already existing ‘pavement of fragments’

And were also embedded in the floor following a pattern of structured randomness

Gravel, in turn, was used as a drainage surface and as an exposed aggregate of the water blasted concrete. Finally, as sand, the stone was used for the traditional renderings of the walls.

Authors Bajet Giramé (Pau Bajet and Maria Giramé)
and JAAS (Manuel Julià) 
Location Alcanar, Tarragona, Spain
Year 2019
Client Club Tenis Serramar
Photography Joan Guillamat
Bajet Giramé Unveiled Affinities: Quaderns in Europe Evergreen School Azatlyk Square Bang Nong Saeng Kindergarten VDC Naidi Community Hall Belvedere

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