{"id":2182,"date":"2021-06-06T08:54:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-06T06:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.klicarquitectos.com\/la-equitativa\/"},"modified":"2026-09-06T11:26:46","modified_gmt":"2026-09-06T09:26:46","slug":"la-equitativa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.klicarquitectos.com\/en\/blog\/la-equitativa\/","title":{"rendered":"La Equitativa \u00b7 Architectural proposal for a historic building facing calle Larios (M\u00e1laga)"},"content":{"rendered":"

A building that closes a square and looks straight down the start of calle Larios, with a fa\u00e7ade, a courtyard and stair cores that cannot be moved. In 2010 we set out what could be done with the La Equitativa building in central M\u00e1laga: 9,792 m\u00b2 carrying Grade I architectural protection under the historic-centre conservation catalogue (PEPRI Centro<\/em>). The proposal still had to accommodate a hotel, a business centre, shops and the flats already in the tower, all inside one structure and without any use getting in the way of the others. It went no further than a proposal: the building was never converted.<\/p>\n

What the protection obliged us to keep at La Equitativa<\/h2>\n

Grade I protection in the PEPRI Centro catalogue is not advisory. It meant the fa\u00e7ade stays, the courtyard stays, and the stairs and lifts stay where they are. Both cores would be brought up to current standards, but neither would move.<\/p>\n

With the vertical circulation and the courtyard fixed in advance, the programme had to be organised around them. The building runs to 9,792 m\u00b2 across a ground floor and thirteen storeys, narrowing into a tower above the seventh. There is also a constraint no planning record shows. The building closes the square and faces the start of calle Larios, so every decision about the fa\u00e7ade and the ground floor is read from one of the busiest public spaces in the city.<\/p>\n

Four uses, four ways in<\/h2>\n

The difficulty was never style. It was cohabitation: a hotel, a business centre, shops and the flats still in the tower, all inside one protected building. Rather than share a single entrance hall between four uses, we separated the entrances completely.<\/p>\n

The entrance that was already there went to the hotel: 113 to 120 rooms on the second to seventh floors. Reception would be its only presence at ground level, and the whole operation was kept fully independent of the other uses, as Spanish regulations require. The residential tower was given a new entrance of its own from the rear passage, so its escape routes are resolved separately from everything else (Spain\u2019s fire safety code, CTE DB-SI). That freed the ground floor for shops entered straight from the street, extending onto the first floor where the building drops in height.<\/p>\n

A percentage decided the business centre<\/h2>\n

The business centre sits on the first and second floors of the tower for a regulatory reason rather than a compositional one. There the use is compatible with the existing residential use, because it takes up less than 50% of the building\u2019s occupancy. The programme came out of reading the rules, not out of defending a drawing.<\/p>\n

The use table on the November 2010 panel splits the 9,792 m\u00b2 as follows: 6,215.59 m\u00b2 hotel, 1,827.77 m\u00b2 retail and 1,748.64 m\u00b2 residential. The business centre is described in the report but carries no floor area of its own in the table. At that stage it was a use settled in plan and not yet quantified.<\/p>\n

Where it stopped<\/h2>\n

The proposal was documented in eight drawings at 1:200 dated October 2010 and an A1 panel with an exploded axonometric of floors and uses: residential in green, hotel in grey, retail in yellow. A photomontage placed the volume in its surroundings. Mechanised parking was looked at too, catalogue of automatic systems and all. It never reached the panel.<\/p>\n

One figure explains the difficulty of the operation better than any image. Another version of the panel, from that same November, keeps the 9,792 m\u00b2 total but adds a fourth category: 900 m\u00b2 belonging to owners not taking part in the refurbishment. The building had several owners, and a conversion of this size needed them to agree. Why it went no further is not documented; what is certain is that there were no construction drawings and no works on site.<\/p>\n

That preliminary work matters more than the first sketch: what the listing obliges, which uses fit, how many square metres there really are. It is what settles whether a heritage conversion is worth doing. If you are weighing up a listed building in M\u00e1laga, contact our architecture studio in M\u00e1laga<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Gallery<\/h2>\n
\"Photomontage<\/figure>\n
\"Descriptive<\/figure>\n

Project data<\/h2>\n
    \n
  • Typology:<\/strong> Architectural proposal for a protected historic building \u2014 mixed use<\/li>\n
  • Use:<\/strong> Hotel, business centre, retail and residential<\/li>\n
  • Location:<\/strong> La Equitativa building, Plaza F\u00e9lix S\u00e1enz, opposite calle Marqu\u00e9s de Larios \u2014 Historic centre of M\u00e1laga<\/li>\n
  • Heritage protection:<\/strong> Grade I architectural protection, Cat\u00e1logo de Edificios Protegidos, PEPRI Centro<\/li>\n
  • Design year:<\/strong> 2010<\/li>\n
  • Status:<\/strong> Unbuilt proposal<\/li>\n
  • Built area:<\/strong> 9,792.00 m\u00b2 (hotel 6,215.59 m\u00b2 \u00b7 retail 1,827.77 m\u00b2 \u00b7 residential 1,748.64 m\u00b2)<\/li>\n
  • Units:<\/strong> 113\u2013120 hotel rooms, on the second to seventh floors<\/li>\n
  • Client:<\/strong> Private ownership<\/li>\n
  • Klic services:<\/strong> Preliminary study and design proposal<\/li>\n
  • Graphic documentation:<\/strong> Eight drawings at 1:200, A1 panel with axonometric of floors and uses, and an urban integration photomontage<\/li>\n
  • Team:<\/strong> Juan Alejandro Go\u00f1i Uriarte (COA M\u00e1laga reg. no. 1206) and Ruth Buj\u00e1n Varela (COA M\u00e1laga reg. no. 1333)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    Other projects in central M\u00e1laga<\/h2>\n

    Discover other Klic Arquitectos projects in central M\u00e1laga: the MOSS Building<\/a> for tourist accommodation in central M\u00e1laga, the Casa Duquesa de Parcent<\/a> in the Soho district, and our architectural keys for building or renovating in M\u00e1laga’s Soho<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n