Legos Cloister
Santa María de El Paular

Restoring the Cloister of a 15th century Carthusian monastery. 

The ancient cloisters of Santa Maria de El Paular have been sensitively adapted to house a new visitor centre and shop and our project was to address the external areas of the cloister. 

Externally, we recalled ancient monastic structures by introducing large steel trellis screens clothed in diverse climbing species to create green 'walls'. These echoed the footprint and layout of the individual Monks' cells.

Meanwhile the cloister garth followed a geometric layout reminiscent of the medieval monastic tradition but with block plantings of evergreen species. We used only species permitted by the National Park of the Sierra de Guadarrama.