A large cube is built on top of a podium flanked by two courtyards. The parking areas, archives and Data Processing Center are accommodated in this podium. Offices are arranged inside the cube on seven floors around the central interior courtyard. The cube is built on a 3 x 3 x 3m grid of reinforced concrete that in the roof serves as a light-gathering mechanism, the central theme of this building. The two facades to the south operate as a “brise-soleil” and, filtering this powerful light, illuminate the areas of open offices. The two facades to the north, serving the individual offices, receive the homogeneous and continuous light of this orientation and are closed to the exterior by means of a stone and glass cladding.
The central interior courtyard, a true “impluvium of light”, gathers the solid sunlight through the skylights and reflects it against the alabaster surfaces of the walls that enclose the corridors to the north, increasing the illumination of the open offices opposite. The roof rests on four huge columns of exposed concrete. Functionally, the building is compact, flexible and simple.
In summary, it is a concrete and stone box that traps sunlight within to serve the functions carried out within this “impluvium of light”.
