College Campus URV Tortosa, a transition between the natural and the artificial by Ravetllat Ribas and Josep Ferrando

Description of the project by Ravetllat Ribas arquitectes and Josep Ferrando

The site of the new campus for Les Terres de l'Ebre is especially attractive for its complexity, since it is a representative and clearly identifiable piece as an urban goal. Halfway between the park and the city, the proposal aims to make a friendly transition between the natural and the artificial. On one side, you can discover the new building in the middle of the trees as a fragmented piece and set back to allow an easy integration with the surroundings of the park. But also, from the other side, it is able to offer a more compact urban facade and that is reconnected with the urban topography taking the usual height of the city.

The building plant is fragmented to obtain a perimeter necessary for the layout of the program and at the same time to be easily crossed. Contrary to what would represent a barrier building, the layout facilitates diagonal paths and establish relationships from the park to Remolins Avenue and from the city to the new fairground. The new campus aims to be the gate of the park, which gives meaning to its beginning or end, and at the same time be the prelude to the commented avenue. Somehow the duality of the location to which we referred at the beginning, is what we think characterizes the new implementation.

This plant also allows to configure a good layout of the requested program. Boundaries are established, in principle optimal, for each of the uses grouping them by thematic areas, reducing the internal circulation, avoiding corridors and generating spaces or small relation spaces. Between these common spaces and those of specific use, located in the facade, it is used an element of variable thickness that serves of transition. Contains server spaces such as bathrooms, facilities patios, lockers, etc., and favors acoustic absorption.

In section, the most public and open program is located on the ground floor, where the hall is arranged with the space exhibition, the CRAI-Library connected to the computer spaces, the study hall and the bar. In the first floor the three types of classrooms that fulfill the requested educational needs. In the second floor the departments are organized with the different offices for the PDI and finally in the third floor the directorate together with the university extension spaces. In this same floor it is anticipated a reserved for installations. The department floors, due to their smaller surface, set back their perimeter and generate outdoor terraces.

As for the structure, a concrete slab is provided supported by concrete pillars. The perimetral pillars are incorporated into a "thick" façade that incorporates storage space for classrooms and offices. This façade consists of a module type that includes a permanent ventilation, an occasional ventilation sheet and a sheet for maintenance and cleaning. Outwardly a modular covering allows it to be understood as a ventilated facade and to adapt its treatment to each of the orientations and needs of the users. The coating rotates and turns into horizontal or vertical sun protection slats according to the orientations, or disappears in some cases.

All these elements we believe can affect in a good way the energy performance of the building and the reasonable maintenance system. The most suitable orientation for each of the uses and the solar protection, as well as the easy transverse ventilation through the interior spaces can help reduce the impact of the artificial systems of air conditioning reserving them only for the most extreme times. The centralized scheme with installation patios located in the central strip optimizes the routes, at the same time as the relatively easy sectorization would allow to regulate the energy consumption by zones.