Ángel Verdasco Arquitectos used a lattice of aluminium beams to cover the ceramic tiled facade of an education centre built over an abandoned market in Melilla.
An autonomous Spanish city located on the coast of Africa, bordering Morocco, Melilla's historic market had been operating for some 90 years prior to its closure in 2003.

After winning a 2008 ideas competition, Madrid-based practice Ángel Verdasco Arquitectos were commissioned to regenerate the area.
The brief required that three existing educational centres ? an academy of music, a language school and an educational centre for adults ? be relocated to the abandoned site.
Photo by Jesus Granada.
Recognising its location at the meeting point of the city's Christian, Muslim and Jewish communities, as well as the market's former role, Ángel Verdasco Arquitectos viewed the project as a "social catalyst". "Architecture is displayed as a tool for multicultural environments and the acceptance of an identity of diversity," said the practice "1,600 students [are] activating the neighbourhood again."
Photo by Jesus Granada.
Local materials and patterns were reinterpreted to clad the exteriors of the buildings.
Ceramic tiles sit in a diamond pattern behind the aluminium lattices, which change in density to allow for or restrict views and light depending on orientation.

The market sits between two districts of different heights, so the new complex has been designed as an "urban connector...