Faculty of Pharmacy of Barcelona

Intervention level: Competition.
Client: UB Barcelona University.
Location: Barcelona
Project year: 2007
Total built: 59.169,10 m²
Budget: 79.580.108,83 €
Other technical:

• Collaboration with *
• AT3, technical architects, economic consultancy.
• Miquel Àngel Sala, architect, structure consultancy.
• Grupo JG, engineers, installations consultancy.
• Societat Orgánica, consultancy sustainable building.

Publications:

• RESIDENTIAL UNIVERSITY AREAS. Department of Urban and Housing Rehabilitation. Council of A Coruña. A Coruña, 2010.

Awards: Competition, 2nd Place.

The proposal defined was a main cube shaped building, surrounded by an open space – patio -. This emptiness in the space will enlarge and turn into a horizontal access level. This way, an external welcome space is created, like a big covered porch. Making easier the continuity of this big lobby space with the future central square located at the east side and also the with the garden space located on the west side and limited by the volume of the future students residence. It is therefore obtained, fluency in the pedestrian itineraries of the campus and also turns the faculty into a place to walk by and stay. The scale of intervention decreased, gaining transparency, permeability and urban relationship with the campus.

A volumetric strategy of fullness and emptiness in the inside of the whole, with the incorporation of longitudinal blocks in the east-west direction, it allows the consecution of differentiated spaces within the main patio. Staffs are the recipients of these bodies. It is obtained this way a global fragmentation of the main volume and the patio that acquires different platforms of use and relation with the inside of the whole. It is also granted, in the centre, by some sustainable organization conditions, as the proportions of its volumes, the location and the measurement, environmental profitability and optimization.

The whole building and in its integrity is understood and a global organism. Therefore, the skin of the building is considered as a wrap that holds the fundamental figures of the place, – optimal orientation, direction of the dominant winds, radiation, reflexes, ventilation, accumulation, etc. Is an energy capturer and it is mandatory to distribute it, fragment it, and get it accommodated. It could be said that the facades try to get the incident energy and turn it into an image through a particular energetic map. To the traditional components, we have to add in a multiplication sense of its own personality or pixelated images raised from the analysis and specifics of the place. The superficial treatment is the result of a process.