This building, used as a campus for research companies, is located on the edge of the campus of the UAB (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona). Due to its open form, it makes the most of the location, the orientation and the views towards the foothills of the Collserola nature park. The building opens up to the south and places the pedestrian accesses in this direction, which, following a gentle slope, lead to the lobby by means of a carefully designed and executed garden.
The typological option is extremely clear: a structure is adopted, in plan, a sort of giant A-shape, which results from taking an initial U-shape and placing a nucleus of stairs and services in the centre of it, with a series of walkways which, like arms, give access to each of the three wings. This creates an inner courtyard full of natural light, as if it were a cloister, which unfolds facing the building, enhancing the appearance of a significant vertical element that characterises the architecture: This element is the nucleus of services and accesses resolved with a singular treatment of reinforced concrete. The walkways adopt different guidelines and a perimeter route is promoted that gives access to each of the offices or laboratories of different shapes and surfaces.
The “hard core” of the building is the vertical core made of exposed reinforced concrete using a carefully designed formwork system. In addition to the branches of the walkways leading off in various directions, there are three nuclei around the vestibule: the staircase, the two lifts and the services. The complexity of the shape and the diversity of openings in these three parts give the tower a great variety.
The remaining spaces, which can be used as offices or laboratories, are distributed over four levels and will be used for business rentals.
The ingenious structure of the building ensures that each of the laboratories will always have outward views and will also receive natural light from the U-shaped corridors that give access to the entire building.
This richness of visuals is also expressed in the texture of the materials: the reflections from the floors, the transparency of the openings, the roughness of the exposed concrete, the solidity of the metal structures with diagonal blades of the connecting arms from the vertical core to the distribution corridors.
Type of project
Offices, research facilities
Year
2007-2009
Surface area
7.200 m2
Collaborators
Pamias (facilities design), Carles Romea (structural design), BlackBox (renderings)
Customer
Barcelona-UAB Free Zone Consortium (Consorci de la Zona Franca de Barcelona-UAB)
Location
Universitat Autònoma de Ballaterra, Barcelona
Photo
Oriol Molas, Jordi Todó (Tavisa)