Location Barcelona (Spain)
Client Lucky Town, S.L.
Area 4.352 m²
Year 2001
Status Completed-Built
Typology Offices
Photography Rafael Vargas
Team Fermín Vázquez, Eduard Miralles, Carme Casanovas, Magdalena Ostornol, Katrin Baumgarten, Javier López
The radical transformation of this office building, built in the 1950s, has as its main objectives the improvement of the conditions of use and a complete upgrade of its performance. The bland original building – between party walls and with serious structural problems – is renovated by optimizing the work spaces, reconfiguring the interior courtyard, rationalizing the core of vertical circulation and, especially, creating a new façade that adds to its solar protection properties, while achieving a recognizable corporate building with a strong identity.
On the façade facing the street, the color extends in an ascending progression, deployed in horizontal sunshades of transparent colored glass, forming a plane that floats without precise limits in front of the enclosure, like a large urban-scale shutter that borrows the colors of the ubiquitous awnings of the neighborhood balconies. The ensemble is arranged gradually in two directions. Horizontally, the tonal gradation varies from yellowish green to orangey red. Vertically, the varying density of the louvers depends on the amount of solar radiation and the size of the street, which makes protection more necessary on the upper floors than on the lower ones.
The colored louvers softly tint the interior workspaces and make the course of the working day perceptible, while outside, the color breaks the monotony of the street, regulating the solar radiation it receives and making the passage of time visible on the public space through its reflection.
