Architect Lina Toro has transformed an existing car wash named “Burbucar” to reveal the cleaning processes to its customers. Located at Costa Rica street in Madrid, the car wash occupies the ground floor of a 7-storey building, in a 70 m-long and 12 m- wide tube. The owners commissioned Lina Toro to renew their image in order to show-up the clean and innovative processes used. The brief also requested that the business, which operates non-stop for 12 hours a day from Monday to Saturday, would not be interrupted during the renovation project.
The renovated car wash offers spaces, associated with the waiting time, which visualize the formerly hidden washing processes. The project changes the corporate image of the conventional carwash into a technified SPA. Clad with blue epoxy paint, the structure integrates and shows all its elements in a continuous 100m- long sequence exterior-interior-exterior: carwash tunnel, boxes, showcases, decoration, clothing, toilets, furniture, machines, installations, lighting, rooms, vegetation and ramps. The entire cleaning process takes place in an average time of 25 minutes.
The washing processes and their specific technology are revealed in the service of the client’s experience through three showcases. The tunnel-showcase consists in a seven consecutive arcs that give a singular spectacle; the purifying-showcase shows the recycling process of the water (decanting of coarse and fine solids, storage tanks, hydrocarbon separator and filters) and the hedonistic-showcase of the VIP room, where the furniture registers the positions of the active and passive wait, whether sitting on the suspended transparent chair or in the ball pool. The project was completed in just one month, and opened in February 2016.
all images © by Imagen Subliminal (Miguel de Guzmán / Rocío Romero) | video courtesy of El Hijo Tonto