Two things about this building remind me of Tetris. The first is obvious: the massing of this building is blocky in a way that looks like an L-shaped piece glued next to one of the long skinny pieces. If you played with the same strategy that I did, you usually ended up with a tall, narrow crevice between two sides of your screen; no matter how badly you needed a long skinny piece, it would only rain L’s. This building is that rare and skinny Tetris piece, not only because it kind of looks like it, but also because it connects two sides of a city that have needed a connection.

The city here is Galicia, Spain, and the two sides are a historic district on one side and a commercial port on the other. A 20 meter bluff between the two effectively isolates each from the other and makes both sides rely on cars to visit the other. This highly visible project from Abalo Alonso Arquitectos responds simply “How about some stairs and an elevator?” The minimal program is wrapped in a durable concrete skin that is punctuated by deep-set windows to animate the blocky mass. The shape my seem a little clunky or funny, but it’s just the connection the city needed.

Found through ArchDaily