New Incasol Corporate Headquarters

New Incasol Corporate Headquarters

An urban reference and a landmark in the city that strikes a balance between an austere, functional and practical building which resolves the program of needs and one endowed with the symbolic and emblematic character typical of an institution.

In overall terms the Incasol headquarters is configured as both a dynamic, sculptural form of great transparency and, without forgoing privacy, as a characteristic public building. The interrelation of the two geometries, structure and skin, gives rise to the juxtaposition defining two planes which are combined to generate the space—a stepped atrium of  variable height.

The entrance irrupts into a multi-height lobby, the building’s communications nerve center, around which all the offices gyrate.

The roof crown tangential to Carrer de l’Alumini becomes the point of greatest height and functions as a hinge with the next-door building, while at the same time concealing the installations machinery.

Out of deference to the single-family dwellings in the southern area of the land lot, the building backs off from the sixth floor upwards to present a more amicable view. The volumetry of the north façade giving onto Carrer Ciències is progressively stepped so as to integrate with the neighboring buildings.

The configuration and geometry of the workspaces has provided the flexibility and capacity for change necessary to this type of building.

The floors without pillars, barring the rigid cores of the elevator shafts and stairwells, lead to the reinforcing of the façade structure with a stylized metal framework of constant rhythm and sober elegance. So it is that the importance of the skeleton is underlined in the final form, thus distancing it from buildings “with a skin.” The sequencing of the windows is governed by 30 cm wide metal pillars filled with concrete to provide resistance to fire, with a center-to-center distance of approximately 1.90 m, on slender, post-tensioned slabs that generate a structural membrane.