In 2009 the Basque Culinary Foundation was created,and the main driving force behind it was the Mondragon Unibertsitatea, a group of internationally recognized Basque cooks and various public institutions. The main goal of the foundation is to guarantee the continuity of cuisine as a focus for innovation in the future and the ongoing training of qualified professionals in gastronomy. To boost technology and innovation within the sector is another one of the challenges the center faces, as well as the creation of new initiatives and business projects.
The Basque Culinary Foundation is a faculty of the University of Mondragon. Students learn gastronomy as well as techniques in management, marketing, history, physics etc and obtain at the end of their studies a university degree, which is unique in Spain.
Apart from the Faculty of Gastonomic Sciences, the Basque Culinary Center will also have a Research and Development Center (R+D), dedicated to the acquisition and exchange of gastronomic knowledge.
For the first year 2011-2012 a total of 70 students from very different backgrounds have enrolled and, after its recent inauguration, there is a large interest on an international level from students that wish to embark upon a professional career in the world of gastronomy and catering.
The emblematic building of the Basque Culinary Foundation
VAUMM, the architect studio from San Sebastian which won the competition, put forward a building design which emulates a pile of plates before they are washed in the kitchen of a restaurant.
To the surprise of the architect of VAUMM, Jon Muniategiandikoetexea: "curiously the design of the plates had a lot of impact afterwards and even the owners used it as a symbol of the foundation."
The building is in the Technological Park of San Sebastian, which is surrounded by nature and the greenery of the Miramón park. In total it covers an area of 15.000 square metres and has a characteristic U- shape. The problem of the slope of the land has been very skillfully solved by taking advantage of this characteristic through the creation of a building with 5 floors, which descend in accordance with the slope of the land.
In the interior of the building we can find model and immaculate instalations consisting of classrooms, workshops, investigation laboratories, last generation kitchens, tasting rooms, offices and an amazing conference room.
The Lighting in the Basque Culinary Center
The building will be the icon of the foundation and should face the Miramón Park. According to Jon Muniategiandikoetexea, from the architect studio VAUMM: “once the building is finished you can see how the idea of the plates develops” and that is when you begin to search for the lighting solutions that support the design of the piled up plates.
The lighting of the Basque Culinary Center has the objective of reinforcing the direction and tension that can be observed from the exterior of the innovative building. But this is also reflected in the interior of the building, specifically in the passageways, where the intention of marking the way in a discreet manner can be observed with the lines built into the ceiling.
In all the common spaces a longitudinal lighting is used, but it is the repetition and the direction which ultimately create movement in the interior… that movement has been transfered from the interior to the exterior.”
Lighting from Indal for interiors
Indal carries out a tailored project combining various types of lighting products with different lengths and power in order to achieve the lighting effect required by the architect. Due to their elegant beauty and their easy integration in the surroundings, Indal selected the lighting models Filo and Evento for the gaps the architect had reserved specifically for the lighting.
Nonetheless in order to obtain the lighting desired by the architect a number of important adjustments were carried out as well as different combinations of lengths and power of the lighting products used. The local Basque team from Indal assessed the architect studio both during the design of the project as well as during the building stages, assisting them to obtain the level of lighting required in the most efficient way.
Other products Indal suppied were Star downlights, totalling 553 units, Evento lighting for the plain rooms (IP65) with 165 units used mainly in the kitchens and another 499 Evento lighting units that have been placed in the entrance hall, passageways, staircase and the offices.
The supply and installation of all these lighting products has been carried out with the collaboration of the heads of the lighting department of the company Elektra, from Martutene (San Sebastian), thus completing the team who is responsible for the execution of the project from the installation company.
Technical specifications
Architect: VAUMM Arquitectura y Urbanismo
Team: Iñigo García Odiaga, Javier Ubillos, Jon Muniategiandikoetxea, Marta Alvarez y Tomás Valenciano
Location: San Sebastian, España
Year of the project: 2009
Year the project started: 12/2009
Year the project finished: 09/2011
Surface area: 15.000 m2
