The two buildings are divided into four floors above ground with one floor almost completely free thanks to its structure, finished with an envelope in which the lower part stands out, in which we will find wild brown granite, while in the remaining three, it will be ceramic. Inside, the glass partitions organize the space and provide the central corridor with natural lighting from the outer perimeter. The program is completed with two floors below ground for underground parking.
Educational and administrative centre by Riaño Arquitectos. Photograph by Alfonso Quiroga.
Description of project by Riaño Arquitectos
The new building is located on a plot of land that is noticeably triangular in shape, on which there is a group of buildings that used to make up a former school.
The buildings were designed as open blocks of different heights with large open spaces for pupils' recreation. This was a novel composition in the Madrid of the 1950s.
The greatest interest of the original complex lies in the layout and articulation of the different volumes, generating a very interesting sequence of landscaped open spaces. The intervention does not alter these conditions and the new buildings rest on the footprints of the east and south buildings.
The new buildings take the form of two L-shaped prisms with a façade of vertical openings alternating with solid ones in a percentage of 50%, which optimizes their energy performance. The aim is to create a neutral and timeless image that does not have an impact on the site, with a predominance of white that chromatically unites the two buildings of the highest architectural quality on the site.
The enclosure on all the façades plays with an alternating rhythm of solid hollows, with an exterior finish in large-format ceramic slabs on the upper floors and wild brown granite on the ground floor.
Both buildings are developed on 4 floors above ground level for administrative and teaching use.
Educational and administrative centre by Riaño Arquitectos. Photograph by Alfonso Quiroga.
In the east building, as a backbone, which is repeated on the different floors, a central corridor with two vertical communication cores runs along the entire surface giving access to offices, classrooms and workrooms, which open onto the four facades.
Through the second vertical communication core, this building is connected to the south building by means of a glass walkway so that the same core serves both.
The floors are distributed with glazed partitions that provide the central corridor with natural lighting from the entire exterior perimeter and, due to the structural conception of a practically free floor plan, together with the design of the façade with alternating hollow/shallow walls, there is a great versatility of partitioning.
The programme is completed with 2 floors below ground level for underground parking, which will serve the complex itself and external users.
