A white roof that ripples along the Torremolinos seafront and, beneath it, a small café — 59.37 m² enclosed — with a kitchen, a bar, a covered terrace and an accessible roof terrace above. Hotel Puente Real wanted it inside its own grounds, and building it was never the hard part. Being allowed to add it was, because the plot had no floor area left to spend. This piece of hospitality architecture in Torremolinos was won on paper first, and on site second.
The brief: a beach club, not a café bolted on
The hotel asked for a free-standing outdoor café at ground level, within its own plot: 20,380 m² according to the cadastral record (catastro), zoned “H – Hotel Use” under the Torremolinos general plan (PGOU) definitively approved in December 1996. A single volume with a kitchen, a bar area and a covered terrace for diners, topped by a 136.18 m² open, accessible roof terrace reached by the staircase the hotel already had.
Alongside it, we handled the extension of the pool area and the sunlounger layout, with the same building contractor and the same site management team, completed in February 2019. That is why the whole ensemble now reads as a beach club rather than a café that turned up on its own: the two were designed together and built together. See also the Kids Club at Hotel Puente Romano in Marbella.
Hospitality architecture in Torremolinos: the paperwork came first
There was no floor area available to add the café’s 59.37 m² of enclosed space. The decision was to take it from somewhere else: we refurbished the plant room at the back of the main hotel block to reduce the building’s countable floor area by 106.15 m² and, with that margin, make room for the new floor area. The completion certificate (certificado final de obra) puts it in those very words. Reduce in order to add.
That meant processing two dedicated annexes — floor area already consumed, and justification of the land as consolidated urban land — and three amendments to the basic design (proyecto básico), stamped by the Málaga College of Architects in April, July and September 2018. The basic design had been stamped in September 2017 and the construction project (proyecto de ejecución) in November 2018. The works themselves were then certified in a little over four months. In commissions like this, the effort is rarely split the way the client expects, and we like to say so before anything is signed. For the wider context, read our guide to hospitality architecture in Torremolinos.
The existing staircase calls the shots
The decisive constraint on site was not the regulations: it was a staircase. The hotel’s existing stair and the structure that carries it forced the entire programme to be rearranged. Enclosed internal area came down from the 65.61 m² of the design to 59.37 m² as built; the kitchen ended up at 19.12 m² usable against 23.56; the bar at 30.20 against 33.06. The covered terrace went the other way, up from 81.08 to 83.42 m². Planned openings had to be closed off, the kitchen window on the south elevation moved and the joinery changed.
The roof was raised until its finished level met the second step of the last flight of the existing stair, and two new steps were built with the same going and rise as the old ones. The terrace needs no stair of its own: you go up the hotel’s, as though it had always led there. Below it, a raft foundation and a reinforced concrete frame of columns, beams and waffle slab.
Materials and construction
The curves are what identify the ensemble from the seafront promenade: the white wave-shaped roof and, inside, a dropped ceiling in 12.5 mm moisture-resistant Knauf plasterboard with gently and sharply curved steps, plus a suspended ceiling that the certification describes, word for word, as “amoeba-shaped”. Above it, a heavy-duty self-supporting frame from which to hang timber panels. On vertical surfaces, 12.7 × 6.2 cm scale-shaped ceramic mosaic, with the edges finished in 10 × 120 cm mitred porcelain stoneware. Inside, Porcelanosa Dover Arena 60×60 porcelain tiles; outside, timber-effect slatted paving; JUNG LS 990 switches and sockets, and RAL 6034 paint on the dropped ceiling.
The works were certified in seven interim valuations between December 2018 and April 2019, with Rivervial Grupo Constructor. A good part of what you see today was decided on site, resolving what only appears once the works are open — roof leaks and waterproofing above the kitchen, the kitchen layout redrawn, the junction between the ramp and the existing stair, lintels, linear grilles, air-conditioning first fix — and fine-tuning finishes, external lighting, bar counters and furniture as part of site management itself.
The hotel kept calling. Since 2016 one commission has followed another: the plot, this café and the pool, an installations safety certificate, two statutory building inspections (ITE) and a soil study. A returning client is the best photograph we have of this project. If our hospitality architecture interests you, see also the Hotel Smy Costa del Sol — also in Torremolinos — and the Hotel Origen in Alcaidesa (Cádiz).
Gallery
Project data
- Typology: Hospitality — leisure facility (beach club: terrace bar, pool and dining). New build at ground-floor level, above grade, with an open, accessible terrace on the roof
- Use: Hospitality and food service for a hotel establishment. Plot zoned “H – Hotel Use” (Torremolinos general plan, PGOU)
- Location: Torremolinos, Costa del Sol (Málaga)
- Design year: 2017-2018 (basic design stamped September 2017; construction project stamped November 2018)
- Construction year: 2018-2019
- Status: Completed and handed over (2019)
- Built area: 59.37 m² enclosed internal space, 83.42 m² covered external space and a 136.18 m² roof terrace
- Plot area: 20,380 m² (hotel plot, per the cadastral record)
- Client: Private hotel company, owner of the plot and developer of the works
- Building contractor: Rivervial Grupo Constructor, S.L.
- Site management: Klic Arquitectos
- Structure: Klic Arquitectos (raft foundation and reinforced concrete waffle slab; structural calculations integrated into the project)
- Building services engineering: Klic Arquitectos (electrical and lighting, plumbing, drainage, air conditioning and ventilation, and telecommunications, integrated into the project)
- Interior design: Klic Arquitectos, resolved through site management (ceilings, bar counters, furniture and external lighting)
- Photography: Klic Arquitectos
- Klic services: Basic design and construction project, equipment design, interior design, site management, basic health and safety study, health and safety coordination during construction, quality control plan and subsequent handling of the first occupancy licence requirements
- Team: Juan Alejandro Goñi Uriarte (COA Málaga member no. 1206) and Ruth Buján Varela (COA Málaga member no. 1333)
