Almogàvers
New life
- Place C. Almogàvers 177-189. BCN
- Client FREO / OAKTREE
- Type Offices
- Total built area 8.268 m²
- Completion date June 2020
The client was seeking to transform an anonymous, dark and inexpressive industrial construction into an efficient and unique office building. Our challenge was to empty out and arrange the new workspaces that would emerge with the new use in order to fill them with natural light, all at the cost of losing built-up area, a fact that the developer did not like at all.
With a fully occupied site and a party wall (without windows) that made up half the perimeter of the façade, our task was focused on spatial emptying: by means of the patios and terraces, we have generated spaces for interrelationship and quality visuals. This allows the incorporation of greenery in the workspaces. The challenge for the client, then, was the acceptance of this loss of built-up surface area, given that the improvements in the quality of the spaces outweighed the lost metres of built-up area.
This decision was fundamental for the development of the project, which consisted of regulating the outside (eliminating discordant volumes, unifying crowns and material) and organising the interior space (repositioning the vertical communication cores around the central courtyard), streamlining the circulation areas and the commercial modulation of the offices.
The building holds the highest certification in sustainability, the LEED Platinum certification.
The proposal achieves natural lighting and transparency in the original central part.
An interior courtyard is generated, open on the ground floor and closed on the upper floors, thus providing light and permeability.
The concept
In essence, a single, long, inexpressive and monotonous volume is transformed into a luminous, orderly and simple building, which is shown as it was built at the time
The existing building used traditional materials and construction solutions drawn from the industrial architecture of the time. We have opted for a constructive recovery: a process of recovering the essence of iron and ceramics for the main façade, and transforming the language of the windows, both geometrically and functionally.
The courtyard generated as a source of natural light and green shelter.