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Architects: Ruiz Larrea y Asociados
- Area: 4890 m²
- Year: 2011
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Photographs:Angel Baltanás
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Manufacturers: BANDALUX
Text description provided by the architects. The plot was built since 1985, with a building that is the former headquarters of the Bank of Spain, made by architects Blein and Sanchez de León. The building is a free volume with two floors above ground, and a basement surrounded by gardens and a driveway for vehicles.
The proposed necessities program implementation of the Central Government Administration Dependencies, in the former headquarters building of the Bank of Spain in Ciudad Real, makes impossible the intervention maintaining the original structure. On the one hand, from the point of view of the area required, the existing space of the current building is insufficient to accommodate the scheme provided, creating extensions in height above the existing building, which would require expensive structural solutions and, on the other hand, the conception of the original building as a closed building to outside, with small, controlled voids that create working spaces with a very poor spatial quality as that would imply performing the demolition of existing walls, hollow openings in floors and to create artificial mechanisms that mortgage the future artificial architectural solution being economically unsustainable.
The building is located in a peripheral urban location, situated on the outskirts of the city, opposite the provincial hospital and close to the bullring. Making a study of the development situation of the building, you can see that is completely detached from its urban environment, and separated by lush greenery and a powerful perimeter security fence.
The urbanisticstandars of land application does not set any parameters or volumetric urban movement area that subjects the building (taking only the basic parameters in the General Urban Plan of Ciudad Real), allowing freedom to develop architectural proposals. Once these analysis are done, a series of actionsare made, designed to add value to the situation of the plot inside the urban mesh and make an unforced building.
As a first action, it was decided to demolish the existing building to the height of ground floor, due to the structural strength of the underground plant, which has facilities rooms, and serves as the footprint that allows a new building with office modern criteria. Two office building are created, with different heights, 5 and 2 floors oriented to the Ronda de Santa Maria square, establishing the background of the gate of the old wall. These pieces are linked by a low crystalline body that articulates access to the building, allowing north-south transparency.
Limits of the plot are diluted, formalizing new pedestrian routes that allows to enjoy the gardens, and a series of platforms are made delimiting building footprint and establishing the contact of the building with the urban environment.
The building has two pedestrian entrances, one main entrance to the building by Porzunastreet, and other secondary access by the Sancho Rey street. The road access is done independently of the main entrance to the building, by the Porzunastreet. The typical floorplan is organized by a technic spine where vertical communication nucleus or bathrooms are located there and serves to the working space, organized as a landscape office related with the park. A block is developed on a structural grid of 6.60x11.00m and the other block has 15.00x6.60m in offices providing maximum workspace flexibility without the existence of any vertical structural element.
In the basement, the original structure of the building is maintained, recovering the old ramp as storage space, and it is enlarged in correlation with the new building volume. New escape and circulation routes are made, which allows to enable for storage use, and for building facilities of that floor.
Building facades establish the relationship with the urban environment, so the building is closed to edificatory areas with the seminar opening a series of controlled and protected holes and protected by a thermal cushion space. On the facade in front of the park, a big glass facade with vertical slats is disposed, that qualify the relationship with outer space with a rhythm and density that differ depending on the application where it is located. The southeast facade is the urban facade of the building. Here, with a big hole in shadow tempered by protection elements as a Brisoleil, at different depths of the façade plane, gives a vibration and an interesting game of lights and shadows.
