Vertical timber battens wrap around this Passivhaus hostel designed by architecture studio Blancodelprim to accommodate pilgrims on the famous route to Santiago de Compostela.
Architects Ignacio Ibarretxe Pariente and Iñaki del Prim were commissioned to design the building by the municipal council of Zegama ? a town situated in a valley of the Oria river.
Top: it is clad in vertical timber battens. Above: the building has a mono-pitched roof
Zegama is located on the route of the Camino de Santiago, known in English as the Way of St James, which has been an important Christian pilgrimage route since the Middle Ages.
The hostel was designed to accommodate up to 12 pilgrims in two simple dormitories arranged across two floors at the taller end of the building. It is located at the entrance to a natural park
The block was positioned at the entrance to the Aizkorri-Aratz Natural Park and is intended to form a gateway pavilion that welcomes visitors to the park.
The brief from the town's municipal administration laid out two specific criteria that the hostel building needed to fulfil.
It used locally sourced pine across the exterior
"The building had to be Passivhaus certified as a guarantee of the city council's commitment to sustainability and the quality of municipal investments," said the architects.
"Also, the hostel was to be located on a plot of land next to the local Wood Museum, so it had to be built with locally sourced radiata pine wood."
The build...