Cruise Ship Terminal

Hombre de Piedra and Buró4 completed a new cruise ship terminal for the Port of Seville: a flexible, multipurpose, extendable building that would permit to accomodate a variable number of passengers and does not limit the possibilities of the urban-port valuable space.

The Port of Seville needed a new Cruise Ship Terminal with a flexible character, multipurpose, extendable, easily removable and even movable.

This would permit to accomodate the unpredictable number of passengers in the port and it does not limit the possibilities of the urban-port valuable space of the Muelle de las Delicias. The Port Authority itself proposed to solve the project using sea containers. On the other hand, the place, near the historic centre, was claiming an object of architectural quality that would promote the dialogue between the port and its urban environment.

The on-site construction work could only last 15 days, the maximum time between two consecutive cruises docking. The modular construction with recycled shipping containers would be mostly finished in workshop, ensuring the precision of the on-site work.

The “high cube” containers are placed in parallel separated one-container distance, and over these spaces between them, the standard containers are placed. The floors of these ones are cut out and placed down at the level of the high cube ones. On the west and east side of the upper containers, windows allow the winds to clear the heat, that comes up by air stratification. The exterior white painting reflects up to 90 per cent of the solar radiation and its special composition with ceramic microspheres avoids its excessive warming.

The upper standard containers are open to the north and they act like skylights. The generated lights and shades as well as the structural remains of ribbed sheet show internally the different juxtaposed container spaces, remembering the succession of the traditional port buildings. As the upper containers are separated and projected beyond the lower ones as a cantilever towards the river, each one of them is clearly recognized.

The lower level, more massive, is lower than the inmediate town surroundings. The separated skylight-containers allow to contemplate both sides of the river in between them. Closely, they clearly show their sea-container nature. From the other shore, Los Remedios, they seem a low basement in form of checkerboard, not competing against the regionalist architecture behind them.

The doors removed from the upper containers are reused inside the building. The original flooring is also reused, once restored. The wall finishing does not try to conceal the industrial details that make possible to recognize the containers, giving a distinctive personality to the space.