StepUP

StepUP is a new office building located on the corner of C/ Sancho de Ávila and C/ Pamplona, in the Poblenou district of Barcelona, within the 22@ technology district. The project has the great challenge of resolving a typical Eixample chamfered corner, but with some particularities that make it special: on the one hand, the presence of the listed Galetes Viñas factory building – constructed between 1880 and 1886, of low density and high architectural value – in C/ Pamplona and, on the other, the large consolidated building with its high-impact party wall in C/ Sancho de Ávila. To this we need to add a tangential passage that gives access to the public space inside the block.

The building acts as a unifying and structuring element for the space, absorbing the difference in height between the consolidated fronts of C/ Sancho de Ávila and C/ Pamplona. Formally, the ceramics form an abstract volume, which disappears when light and views are needed, and becomes evident when it is necessary to protect it from the sun and becomes an urban diffuser of filtered light.

The interior layout enhances the specificity of this building, placing the core of vertical communications and services on the chamfered corner, on the façade, freeing up the rest of the floor and achieving an open-plan space, free of visual obstacles that allow the utmost permeability. This offers the greatest flexibility of use in the work area and allows all the spaces in the building to have natural light on the floors above ground level.