Verne Arquitectura Sinks a Timber-Roofed Pelota Court into the Medieval Fabric of Aguilar de Codés

A frontón is one of the hardest buildings to slip into a medieval village. It needs a tall, blank wall for the ball, a long clear span, and enough volume to hold a crowd. In Aguilar de Codés, a small Navarrese town at the foot of the Sierra de Codés, Verne Arquitectura, working with Alejandro Maortua, had to fit all of that onto a tight central plot once occupied by a dilapidated house. The council also wanted the court to host festivals and community meals, and asked for a small public square, storage, a stage and dressing rooms on the same 800 m² footprint.

What makes the Maeztu court worth studying is how little of that program the street actually sees. The architects worked mainly in section: they sank the court partly into the ground, placed the entrance at the one point where street and plaza almost meet, and dressed the outside in sandstone that keeps the window positions of the demolished house. Inside, the structure is honest and separate from the finish. Precast concrete walls carry the load, laminated timber spans the roof, and a long timber truss on the south side lets the hall open toward the light. The project won the 2025 Architectural Record Award in the Sports category, and we think it earned it.

A Big Volume That Reads as a Village House

From the surrounding fields, the building sits among the tiled roofs at the same scale as its neighbours and stays below the bell tower. It does not compete with the skyline, which is the first test any public building in a village like this has to pass.

Up close, the stone base and the slatted upper level split the height into two readable parts. That split matters. A court wall of this size, shown at full height in a single material, would look like a warehouse. Divided this way, the lower part belongs to the street and the screen above reads as something lighter, closer to the timber galleries and drying lofts of rural Navarre.

Keeping the Face of the Demolished House

The sandstone ashlar elevations repeat the window positions and proportions of the house that stood here. The small recessed openings now light secondary rooms and a semi-buried hall, so their job has changed. They still tell passers-by that this plot has always been part of the street wall.

A carved coat of arms, reportedly that of the Maeztu family, is set into the new stonework. Reusing a fragment like this could easily slide into sentiment. Here it works because the rest of the wall is plain and precise: coursed blocks, a copper downpipe, a timber fascia under the tiled eave. The crest is the only ornament, and it carries the memory of the site.

Corners, Eaves and the Open Landscape

The corners are where the building's layers show most clearly. The stone block stops cleanly, a thin timber eave projects beyond it, and the slatted level sits back above. Seen against the open hills and distant wind turbines, the volume looks compact and grounded, with no extra parapet or flashing to clutter its edges.

The deep eaves do practical work too. They shed water off the stone and shade the upper screen, and they echo the overhangs on the older houses nearby without copying their details.

Weathering Steel at the Square

Toward the new square, the perpendicular volume holding the stage and dressing rooms is clad in weathering steel. On the court's south façade, vertical Z-shaped slats in the same material hang in frames from the timber truss. The rust tone sits comfortably beside the sandstone and the clay roofs, and it will keep darkening in a way that suits a village that measures time in centuries.

The plaza itself is modest: pale paving, a steel edge, a single tree. That modesty is right. It is a forecourt for the bandstand and for the meals and dances the council wanted to host, a space that only comes to life when people fill it.

Threading Through Old Walls

Some of the best views here are the narrow gaps between the new stone and the old rubble and brick walls next door. The project does not clear the plot back to a clean slate. It keeps its neighbours close, and the passages between them feel like the alleys of the old town rather than leftover space.

From inside, the open south side of the hall frames the hillside and the turbines beyond. A semi-buried room that also looks out at the landscape is unusual, and it comes directly from the decision to work the section first.

Concrete Walls for the Ball

The precast concrete walls are left exposed inside, and for a frontón that is more than an aesthetic choice. The wall is the playing surface. It has to be flat, hard and tough enough to take decades of impact. The double-wall elements, supplied by Viguetas Navarras and able to reach 12 m in height, give that surface without the delays and variability of pouring tall walls in a cramped village centre.

The stepped concrete seating along one side does double duty. It holds spectators on match days and becomes informal tiers for festivals and meals. With the timber roof above and the pale floor below, the hall feels less like a sports facility and more like a covered public room.

A Truss That Becomes a Façade

The engineering highlight is the south façade. It is a single large laminated-timber truss, supported only at its ends and at the point where the stage and changing-room volume meets the façade plane. A small balcony forms at that junction. The truss frees the long side of the court from intermediate columns, so the edge of the hall can stay open to light and air.

Seen from below, the glulam frame, the angled tie rods and the vertical slats read as a single assembly. Structure, screen and enclosure share the same depth, which is the kind of economy that small public budgets should demand more often. Credit goes to structural engineer Josep Agustí and timber fabricator Madergia.

Light Filtered Through Slats

The slatted south side turns direct sun into moving stripes across the floor and the concrete walls. The light stays usable for play without glare, and the hall changes character through the day. Low winter sun reaches deep into the room; higher summer sun is broken up before it lands.

We would like to know more about how the hall handles heat and ventilation in a continental Navarrese summer, since the published material says little beyond the filtering screen. The photographs, though, show a room that feels calm even when empty, and that is harder to achieve than it looks.

Plans and Drawings

The plans show the strategy clearly. The semi-basement holds the court void, storage, changing rooms and toilets. The plaza level places the covered court, the stage, the ramp and the open square around a single tree. The sections are where the project really reveals itself: the court drops below street level so the roof can stay at house height, and the access ramp ties the two levels together at the building's midpoint.

The exploded axonometric separates the hipped roof, the main volume and the panelled screen, which mirrors the architects' stated split between structural and finish materials. The construction details show the eaves, the edges of the stone cladding and the plaza wall, which are the joints that decide whether a building like this ages well.

Why This Project Matters

Small towns across rural Europe need new public buildings, and they usually get either generic sheds or nostalgic imitations. The Maeztu court shows a third option. Use the section to manage the scale problem, keep the elements of the street that carry memory, and build the rest in clear, contemporary systems that do not pretend to be old. The result respects the village without copying it.

It also shows that prefabrication and craft can work together on a tight site. Precast concrete, glulam and weathering steel came in as engineered components, while the stonework and the reused coat of arms tie the building to its place. For architects working on small civic commissions with limited budgets, this is a strong model: one clear structural idea, a few well-chosen materials, and a building that gives its town a court, a bandstand and a square at once.

Maeztu Basque Pelota Court, fronton court and multi-purpose space, by Verne Arquitectura (Víctor Larripa, Javier Martínez, Daniel Ruiz de Gordejuela) with Alejandro Maortua. Location: Aguilar de Codés, Navarre, Spain. Area: 800 m². Year: 2024. Structure: Josep Agustí. Contractor: ERKI. Timber: Madergia. Photography: Pablo Garcia Esparza.

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