Parametric façade for Temara

The project

Temara commissioned us to design the façade of its new premises on Avenida Aragón, in the space previously occupied by the Sally O’Brien pub. The project translated a motif from its visual identity into a façade skin. Archicercle undertook the parametric design, site measurements, assessment of existing features, fabrication and installation.

The commission began without a fixed brief. After reviewing Temara’s Arabic-inspired visual identity, we selected part of the logo as the basis for a regular pattern. Rather than creating a new graphic identity, the intervention reinterpreted the existing one at the scale of the façade.

The geometry was developed from measurements of the premises and an assessment of the existing frames and openings. We used this information to create a light-and-dark map that would guide the distribution of solid areas and voids. The tones in this map were a design tool, not a specification for the façade’s colour.

Using parametric software, we generated random variations of the pattern governed by this map. Across solid sections and in front of the existing frames, the probability of generating solid surface increased; in front of openings, the reverse applied. The density of the pattern therefore responded to the configuration of the existing frontage.

The work continued with the fabrication and installation of the openwork skin. Its white surface combines curved and circular motifs with varying degrees of openness. The result connects Temara’s identity with its façade through a pattern that adapts to the existing features rather than being distributed uniformly across them.

A fragment of the logo becomes the starting module for the pattern.

Changes in density follow the position of the solid sections, frames and openings of the premises.

Processes and materials: fabrication services · available materials · studio machinery.