Biomimicry and biotipes. Biomedical Research Center by Vaillo + Irigaray Architects
07/03/2022.
[Pamplona] Spain
metalocus, JAVIER ARIAS
metalocus, JAVIER ARIAS
The Biomedical Research Centre (CIB) is a work designed by Vaillo + Irigaray Architects. Winner of the first prize in a restricted competition for the Navarra Health Service, it is located in the city of Pamplona, Navarra, Spain.
Based on the concept of biomimicry, understood as the adaptation of biological systems to human procedures and art-facts, Vaillo + Irigaray Architects proposes to use this idea in the process, both functional and creative, of developing this architectural work.
Based on the concept of biomimicry, understood as the adaptation of biological systems to human procedures and art-facts, Vaillo + Irigaray Architects proposes to use this idea in the process, both functional and creative, of developing this architectural work.
Biomedical Research Center by Vaillo + Irigaray Architects. Photograph by Pedro Pegenaute.
Biomedical Research Center by Vaillo + Irigaray Architects. Photograph by Rubén P. Bescós.
Biomedical Research Center by Vaillo + Irigaray Architects. Photograph by Rubén P. Bescós.
Biomedical Research Center by Vaillo + Irigaray Architects. Photograph by Rubén P. Bescós.
Biomedical Research Center by Vaillo + Irigaray Architects. Photograph by Rubén P. Bescós.
Biomedical Research Center by Vaillo + Irigaray Architects. Photograph by Rubén P. Bescós.
Biomedical Research Center by Vaillo + Irigaray Architects. Photograph by Rubén P. Bescós.
Biomedical Research Center by Vaillo + Irigaray Architects. Photograph by Rubén P. Bescós.
Biomedical Research Center by Vaillo + Irigaray Architects. Photograph by Rubén P. Bescós.
Biomedical Research Center by Vaillo + Irigaray Architects. Photograph by Rubén P. Bescós.
Biomedical Research Center by Vaillo + Irigaray Architects. Photograph by Rubén P. Bescós.
Biomedical Research Center by Vaillo + Irigaray Architects. Photograph by Rubén P. Bescós.
Biomedical Research Center by Vaillo + Irigaray Architects. Photograph by Rubén P. Bescós.
Biomedical Research Center by Vaillo + Irigaray Architects. Photograph by Rubén P. Bescós.
Biomedical Research Center by Vaillo + Irigaray Architects. Photograph by Pedro Pegenaute.
Biomedical Research Center by Vaillo + Irigaray Architects. Photograph by Rubén P. Bescós.
Biomedical Research Center by Vaillo + Irigaray Architects. Photograph by Pedro Pegenaute.
Biomedical Research Center by Vaillo + Irigaray Architects. Photograph by Pedro Pegenaute.
Biomedical Research Center by Vaillo + Irigaray Architects. Photograph by Pedro Pegenaute.
Biomedical Research Center by Vaillo + Irigaray Architects. Photograph by Pedro Pegenaute.
Biomedical Research Center by Vaillo + Irigaray Architects. Photograph by Pedro Pegenaute.
Biomedical Research Center by Vaillo + Irigaray Architects. Photograph by Pedro Pegenaute.
Biomedical Research Center by Vaillo + Irigaray Architects. Photograph by José Manuel Cutillas.
Biomedical Research Center by Vaillo + Irigaray Architects. Photograph by José Manuel Cutillas.
Biomedical Research Center by Vaillo + Irigaray Architects. Photograph by José Manuel Cutillas.
Biomedical Research Center by Vaillo + Irigaray Architects. Photograph by José Manuel Cutillas.
Biomedical Research Center by Vaillo + Irigaray Architects. Photograph by José Manuel Cutillas.
Biomedical Research Center by Vaillo + Irigaray Architects. Photograph by José Manuel Cutillas.
Biomedical Research Center by Vaillo + Irigaray Architects. Photograph by José Manuel Cutillas.
Biomedical Research Center by Vaillo + Irigaray Architects. Photograph by José Manuel Cutillas.
Biomedical Research Center by Vaillo + Irigaray Architects. Photograph by José Manuel Cutillas.
Biomedical Research Center by Vaillo + Irigaray Architects. Photograph by José Manuel Cutillas.
Biomedical Research Center by Vaillo + Irigaray Architects. Photograph by José Manuel Cutillas.
Biomedical Research Center by Vaillo + Irigaray Architects. Photograph by José Manuel Cutillas.
Biomedical Research Center by Vaillo + Irigaray Architects. Photograph by Pedro Pegenaute.
Biomedical Research Center by Vaillo + Irigaray Architects. Photograph by Rubén P. Bescós.
Site plan. Biomedical Research Center design by Vaillo + Irigaray Architects.
Ground floor plan and type plan . Biomedical Research Center design by Vaillo + Irigaray Architects.
Façade and section plan. Biomedical Research Center design by Vaillo + Irigaray Architects.
Section detail. Biomedical Research Center design by Vaillo + Irigaray Architects.
Section detail. Biomedical Research Center design by Vaillo + Irigaray Architects.
Section detail. Biomedical Research Center design by Vaillo + Irigaray Architects.
Diagram. Biomedical Research Center design by Vaillo + Irigaray Architects.
Vaillo + Irigaray Architects use three biological models as a reference system: the camel, the bear, and the leaf. Their choice stems from the desire to pursue the greatest possible climatic efficiency in the building.
Deformations that accumulate energy or alter according to their needs, a skin whose use and configuration maintains the ideal temperature, leaves whose lightness allows them to fold and unfold as required by the solar conditions.
The structure of the building is based on this third biotope, the leaves. They are self-supporting and flexible perforated aluminum plates. They are slightly thick and have large dimensions. This system can also evoke the art of origami, folds, and shadows make up its appearance.
Biomedical Research Center by Vaillo + Irigaray Architects. Photograph by José Manuel Cutillas.
Biomedical Research Center by Vaillo + Irigaray Architects. Photograph by José Manuel Cutillas.
Deformations that accumulate energy or alter according to their needs, a skin whose use and configuration maintains the ideal temperature, leaves whose lightness allows them to fold and unfold as required by the solar conditions.
The structure of the building is based on this third biotope, the leaves. They are self-supporting and flexible perforated aluminum plates. They are slightly thick and have large dimensions. This system can also evoke the art of origami, folds, and shadows make up its appearance.
Biomedical Research Center by Vaillo + Irigaray Architects. Photograph by José Manuel Cutillas.
Biomedical Research Center by Vaillo + Irigaray Architects. Photograph by José Manuel Cutillas.
Description of project by Vaillo + Irigaray Architects
USES AND ORGANIZATION
- Ground floor: Collective uses and management of the center ( events hall, library, and administration).
- First and second floors: Research uses ( labs, platforms, and service areas).
- Semi basement floor: General warehouse of the hospital.
- Roofing floor: It lodges the complex facilities this kind of center requires.
Maximum flexibility: Formal multifunctionality and iso-spaces of the main elements (laboratories and platforms for research) and the creation of a service hub-serving spaces-as a backbone that feeds the rest of the building.
The extreme floors (ground floor: library+ events hall….and roofing floor: facilities) involve the parts of the program with the greatest functional disparity.
His look is inherent in his intrinsic functionality. It shows up through one enclosure that covers all of its formal determinations. The outer skin traces its internal structures.
BIO-MIMICRY AND BIO-TYPES
The camel, the polar bear, and the leaf: the project aims to link with the content of the program: Bio-Medical Research, through the implementation of biomimicry (adaptation of biological systems and human devices) in the process of generation architecture.
They take these three bio-reference types to achieve similar adaptive systems.
The camel as a paradigm for functional section.
Defense from extreme climate conditions causes the occurrence of bumps as stockpiling (water, food, fat…).
As well as the camel’s anatomy expands towards his function requires (in another kind of animal it would become a functional deformation-malformation) in this building bumps and hollows are generated were required by the function: with the creation of backpacks with different sizes on the roof (to hold the multiplicity of facility machines that such a technologic building requires) and hollows on the ground floor and semi-basement (entrance to warehouse, loading, and unloading of the trucks, entrance to the inner courtyard, lighting of the semi-basement, and so on). So, the building deforms to configure a silhouette able to operate effectively, even being able to mutate for the future on its deformations, without losing its essence.
The polar bear skin as an example of multifunctionality
The skin must keep a consistent inner temperature of the bear, despite the permanent outdoor cold, and it achieves it through a black thick skin, wrapped in holed transparent hair that keeps the air cold inside. The vision we have is of white hair, but it is due to the accumulation, and so it mimes with ice and snow.
The leaf as integration between structural resolution and flexibility
For the design of the perforated steel plates, the third biotype is involved: As well as the leaves of the trees, those huge plates (4500x800 mm) and with reduced thickness (3mm) have to be self-supporting, light, flexible, and keep upright…to that end the mixture of the origami allows the generating of plans, folds, and nerves, providing rigidity to the set and taking the required geometry to protect from sun and allowing the vision.
More information
Architects
Vaillo + Irigaray Architects. Antonio Vaíllo. Juan L. Irigaray Huarte. Architect.- Daniel Galar.
Design team
Architects.- Borja Benavent, David Eguinoa, Oscar Martínez, Juan Carlos de la Iglesia, Ángel Álvarez, Isabel Franco.
Project Director.- Daniel Galar. Project Director.- Javier Huertas. Technical architecture.- José Ángel Oteiza | Jorge Visiers. Structure.- Raúl Escrivá | OPERA Ingeniería. Facilities.- José Javier González Estremad. GE Ingenieros. Façade.- Marcial Lázaro | ALTRES. Lattices.- Jofebar.
Client
Navarre Health Service. OSASUNBIDEA.
Builder
OHL. La Guareña.
Developer
Navarre Health Service.
Area
12,150 sqm.
Budget
€18,000,000.
Dates
June, 2008 - November, 2011.
Location
Pamplona, Navarra, Spain.
Photography
Antonio Vaíllo, Juan Luis Irigaray, Yago Vaíllo. Vaillo + Irigaray Architects
Vaillo + Irigaray Architects is an architecture firm founded in 1998 by Antonio Vaíllo and Juan Luis Irigaray, with Yago Vaíllo joining as a partner in 2020. It is located in Navarra, Spain.
Working method in the office is based on the concept of project strategy, which embraces the widest range of possible scales, from a simple bench to the whole city. It proposes a creative process that will develop founding concepts to be equally applied to management, procedures and design.
VAILLO+IRIGARAY ARCHITECTS conceive design from a multifocal perspective, so they deal with matters from diverse points of view to contribute unifying solutions.
Their source of inspiration is the project itself: the client, function, program, financial resources… are just raw materials to creativity. Consequently, every project has a unique personality, every project demands exclusive materials and details: every project requires an investigation process and a precise development, according to specific needs. The office structure is organized in 6 areas:
eLAB.- Experimental laboratory for basic creativity to explore urban, social, cultural needs. It is oriented to generate new patterns of interaction with the world of industry, architecture and art. I + D + i.- Innovation and research with the intention to face the needs in every project according to the world of industry, construction and arts and crafts. BRANDing 360°.- Platform to promote brand strategy as a 360º process. PROJECTS.-Area for design and definition of urban, architectural and industrial projects.
PROJECTS.- Area for design and definition of: Museums architecture, Museography, Interior design, Product design, Public architecture, Educational architecture, Housing, Health architecture, Offices architecture, Commercial architecture, Urban design, Industrial architecture. INTERNATIONAL.- We develop our international dimension associated with different architectural firms in Swizertland, Mexico and Israel. TEACHING.- Defenders of professional hybridization theory / practice, we combine the practice of architecture with the Teaching. Teachers in different Schools of Architecture and Guest Lecturers in different educational institutions to teach disciplines related to architecture, Innovation and Creativity. Regular lectures at several centers, institutions and groups.
AWARDS & PUBLICATIONS.- Their work has received numerous awards in national and international competitions both for formal and constructive quality. Their work is regularly published in the most important national and international media.
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