Elche Convention Center

New Convention Center of Elche
International design competition
Year: 2025
Place: Elche, Spain
Architect: Bianchini & Lusiardi Associati
Construction cost: € 34.618.298,39 + VAT
Competition proposal – preliminary design

The site of Elche’s new conference center is located east of the Palmeral, an area of ​​great landscape, environmental, and cultural value, internationally renowned and a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2000.
Our project stems from an analysis of the context, both culturally and environmentally and climatically, from an analysis of needs, and from the need to ensure the most flexible and creative use of space possible.
From the perspective of its placement on the site, the new building, consisting of five floors above ground and three underground levels for parking, resembles a rectangular parallelepiped with one of its long sides parallel and adjacent to Calle Guadassuar, a currently dead-end street that will be extended to allow full circulation around the building and to allow service and emergency vehicles to exit onto Calle José Sánchez Sáez.
From the ground floor to the fourth floor, the conference rooms, ground-floor public services, and offices form the central core of the building; This core of main functions is surrounded by a circular path and a strip of both indoor and outdoor spaces that runs along the entire perimeter. This strip contains vertical connections—staircases and elevators—meeting spaces, event preparation areas, restrooms, storage areas, and technical areas. A large outdoor space dedicated to relaxation and socializing extends from the second to the fourth floor. This outdoor space is inspired by umbracles, the large structures found in Mediterranean botanical gardens, which, characterized by large sunshades, house various species of tropical plants.