Description of project by MRM arquitectos
The project proposes an attractive and innovative response to the distribution company needs as well as providing an added value that results in its better operation and a new distinctive image of the company.
The proposal consists of a large open-air parking space for its own truck fleet, which occupies most of the surface in the intervention, and a monolithic volume where the company's headquarters is located and the neccesary storage that supports its logistics activity.
The exempt building transmits rotundity and representativeness through the manipulation of its geometry, standing out in the middle of the industrial environment in which it is located, where functional and economic criteria usually prevail over aesthetic ones.
According to its form, the building is configured through a geometric trick: the roof ridge of a traditional industrial warehouse is rotated from its squared plan to provide greater height and storage space capacity. This simple gesture of intersections of the fields of the roof with the facade planes causes the modification of the crowning line.
Therefore, the four elevations of the piece doesn’t look like the traditional image of an industrial warehouse. Each one acquire a characteristic profile that varies depending on the point of view.
The roof skylight and the carefully distributed openings occasionally perforate the volume, emphasizing the sculptural image of the building.
The measures and proportions used in the building are defined by the classic rules of the golden ratio, (established between the height of the ridge and its projection on the elevation plans, and also between the diagonal and the sides of the square in plan).
An attractive and paradoxical game of scales is generated, in which the building appears small and friendly from its approach and surprisingly large inside. The building combines the domestic silhouette of a house and the industrial typologies resemblance, as a metaphor of its use as headquarters and "home" of a transporters cooperative.
The internal order of the building also responds to the guidelines of the squared area of 26m side. The structure, arranged perpendicular to the diagonal, with slkender frames and pillars, contrasts with the massive central brick volume, that configures and defines the different areas of the program: on one side, the storage area (which constitutes the main activity of the company and the one that occupies the largest surface), on the other side, the administrative area and meeting space for assemblies.
The server spaces (archive, facilities, services, locker rooms, office and a meeting room) are inserted inside the two-storey volume of concrete block painted in white, perforated by a patio that visually connects the two areas and extends the dialogue between heaviness and lightness.
The patio aperture on the roof becomes one more hole that sculpts the piece, as also do as “wedges” the main office access and the loading dock.
The piece is cladded on its five facades with a metallic envelope (ventilated double steel sheets with high insulation inside) emphasizing its monolithic character and the singular and modern image pursued. The laminated chestnut wood carpentry provides the counterpoint, and brings the domestic and the industrial closer together.
