The driving force behind our project has been how to solve two key issues. On the one hand, the formal and typological unity of both buildings, and on the other, the difficult geometry of the plot and the proposed volumes, so that they have the necessary order and link with the neighbouring buildings with which they will share the plot.
Two very different volumes are proposed. An office tower with a very reduced floor plan, around a communications core, and a building with a much larger floor plan, but with half the height. This typological difference between tower and atrium does not result in equivalent workspaces, and yet the programme develops the idea of three relatively equal users. For this reason, the typology of both volumes has been unified, with the surface area dedicated to offices arranged around a communications core. In both buildings, the core is displaced from the centre of gravity of the floor plan to occupy a space with views of the river and the city, where the social and relaxation spaces will also be located.
Besides, this typological unity is reflected in the formal unity of the complex. The two buildings form a double, symbiotic system, which not only share a common plinth, but also establish through their position and the movement of the façades a space between them into which the real space of the proposal is looking. In a sculptural play, the façades turn and fold, accompanying the movement of the sloping roofs from one volume to another, which allows both pieces to be understood as a whole.
Urbanistically, the building solves all the plot's planning problems. At the same time the idea of belonging to an order that goes beyond the scope of the project has been formalized, incorporating the building into the plan for the whole area.
Surface parking.
The requested car park above ground level brings several problems that have been taken into account. On the one hand, its integration into the building without interfering with its operation, and on the other, the mandatory future dismantling, once the building is in operation. It is planned to build the landscaped terrace with an ecological pavement that will house an open-air car park for 140 vehicles without the need to build anything more than two removable ramps. Above this landscaped floor and with a dismountable system, a provisional floor is planned to house 80 additional vehicles. In this way, the car park can be dismantled without the need for building work and without interfering with the functioning of the existing building.
Once the car park has been dismantled in the future, it is possible to use the garden floor as a semi-public space, which will house a Wintergarten towards which new meeting spaces will be opened, to extend the office space, or simply to occupy the floor with open-air work spaces.
The foyer will have the representative character required by the complex. This space will be dominated by the Conference Hall which, with the possibility of having different room configurations depending on the needs of the moment and together with the rest of the foyer, forms a true multifunctional congress space.
The façade responds in each orientation to the different needs for light, views and protection, which has been architecturally translated into different formal solutions. While the general façade has been resolved with a flat appearance and vertical modulation, on the south façade the modulation becomes horizontal, and the façade takes on volume with the eaves and pillars.
