The Microbiological Chemical Laboratory is a building, designed by the Penelas Architects architecture studio, led by José Luis Esteban Panelas, with a program of microbiological chemical analysis laboratories that offers analytical, inspection and consulting services in the agri-food and environmental sectors, located in an industrial area of the municipality of Alcalá de Guadaíra, southeast of the Andalusian capital, Seville.

The laboratories, located in an industrial zone, were projected to generate an exterior image that would generate identity and reactivate the bland industrial landscape in which it is located. For this, an exterior volumetry was generated that was the synthesis between a program, in the words of its authors, of hyper-technology, local tradition and an attentive response to the climatic context in which it is located.
Penelas Architects designs the building generating a volume that seems to float thanks to leaving a threshold area, an access space excavated in the ground, which allows a vision of the basement far from stereotypes, facilitating an attractive openness and permeability, while it is protected from solar radiation.

The exterior volumetry is projected with an envelope that repeatedly folds around the volume of the building, generating a double façade that provides interesting protection from the harsh sun in the area. Between the internal glass façade and the external perforated aluminium façade, a solar chimney effect is created, which is configured by varying the perforations depending on the orientation of the building.

Inside, the project proposes a continuous superimposition of the spaces through the extension and sliding of the different interior volumes. This spatial complexity is ordered by the central staircase that structures the building and allows the descent of an overhead light that illuminates the interior spaces.

The structure and envelope merge into a clean encounter between materials. The reinforced concrete and steel structure that forms large spans in accordance with the building's program, is visible inside, allowing a continuous meeting of the envelope.


Chemical and Microbiological Laboratory by Penelas Architects. Photograph by Imagen Subliminal.


Chemical and Microbiological Laboratory by Penelas Architects. Photograph by Imagen Subliminal.

 
"a building of great sophistication, of reinforced concrete and steel, allowing for large spans across the building’s interior, creating very diaphanous spaces, necessary for the functioning of the laboratory… a slab-grid - visible on the lower levels of the façade – has a clean meeting point with the exterior skin…"
José Luis Esteban Panelas


Chemical and Microbiological Laboratory by Penelas Architects. Photograph by Imagen Subliminal.


Chemical and Microbiological Laboratory by Penelas Architects. Photograph by Imagen Subliminal.
 

Description of project by Penelas Architects

“…multiplicities, lines, strata and segmentarities,
lines of flight and intensities…”
Deleuze, Guattari

POST-INDUSTRIAL AESTHETICS… The building hosts a microbiological and chemical analysis laboratory with extremely complex functional facilities… this requires great functional efficiency in its final use… compatible with a hyper-advanced image that, in parallel, aims to evoke emotions… the building presents a marked post-industrial aesthetic character… URBAN REACTIVATOR… that reactivates the powerful surrounding industrial landscape… through its perforated facades it filters the environment and generates its own interior landscape… HYPERTECHNOLOGICAL FACE… the design of its exterior volumetric architecture is based on the hyper-technology of high-speed trains… and also in the triangular geometry of the dome of the Hall of Ambassadors and in the transition of spaces in the Reales Alcázares of Seville... it is technology in dialogue with tradition... the past related to the present and the future... BIOCLIMATIC ACTIVE SKINS... the building protects itself from the sun, providing its own shading thanks to the fractured design that creates a double facade... it creates an inner glass envelope and an outer super-perforated aluminium envelope made up, generated with parametric-computational systems... between these two building envelopes, the effect of a solar chimney is created and adjusted depending of the function of each of the building’s orientation: to the North with large perforations; to the West, it is more opaque, with small perforations; to the East, it receives the morning sun through variable perforations, and to the South – where the building facilities are located – it is practically opaque…


Chemical and Microbiological Laboratory by Penelas Architects. Photograph by Imagen Subliminal.

EXTERIOR SKINS, VARIABLE GEOMETRY… the outer skin has variable geometry… with its perforations, it shifts and blurs the light creating a more intimate interior space… the interior glass skin, with functional geometry, wraps the laboratories… FUNCTIONAL LAYERS… the interior is composed of superimposed spatial strata… they generate a high spatial complexity, through the extension and overlapping slides of the different spaces and volumes… thus, the building extends into the existing surroundings… THE STAIRCASE-SCULPTURE… a great central staircase-sculpture choreographs the building, with light descending from the lightwell… HYPERTRANSPARENCIES… the interiors are illuminated, with sunlight filtered through the skylights, passing through the transparent glass planes… creating a play of light and shadow… beautiful, reflective and mysterious spaces arise, with optimal conditions to inhabit and work…


Chemical and Microbiological Laboratory by Penelas Architects. Photograph by Imagen Subliminal.

FRIENDLY ACCESSIBILITY… a ramp-bridge over the void of the patio allows universal access to the ground level, elevated from the street… WEIGHTLESSNESS AND LIGHTNESS… the building rises generating a sensation of weightlessness… it is suspended, with a large cantilever, floating and leaving a threshold area that allows it to filter into the sky and the landscape… as was often the case in the architecture of the Islamic West… SUPERSTRUCTURE… a building of great sophistication, of reinforced concrete and steel, allowing for large spans across the building’s interior, creating very diaphanous spaces, necessary for the functioning of the laboratory... a slab-grid - visible on the lower levels of the façade – has a clean meeting point with the exterior skin… RECYCLABLE MATERIALS… concrete, steel, glass, and aluminium… a set of materials that enhances the building’s expression and concept… SPATIAL SYMBIOSIS… all this reflects its original concept of a spatial symbiosis that creates a feeling of anticipation and magical stillness in its occupants…

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Project team
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Yolanda Hernández Lorente, María Esteban Casañas, Antonio Guijarro, Marina Rodríguez Sotoca, Kevin Román Cruz, Yakaterina Savina.
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Collaborators
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Technical architect.- Antonio Atienza Ramírez.
Structures and MEP engineering.- BDEV Baroja, Estévez, del Valle, Arquitectos.
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Client
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Builder
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Area
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2,000 sqm.
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Dates
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2020.
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Location
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C/ San Nicolás Díez, 46. 41500 Alcalá de Guadaíra, Seville, Spain.
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Photography
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José Luís Esteban Penelas is an architect and urbanist (Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid, ETSAM1985, UPM). Dr. Architect and Professor of Architectural Projects (UEM). He founded in 1986 his office of Architecture and Urbanism PENELAS ARCHITECTS.

He is Professor of Architectural Projects (School of Architecture, UEM), where he has been a professor since 1999; he has been a professor at ETSAM (1987-2001) and is a visiting professor and lecturer at numerous universities and national and international institutions.

He has done extensive work on projects and works in the field of building, urban planning and urban design. Between its production has developed, among others: Park Juan Carlos I, Madrid; Plaza of the Reina Sofía National Museum, Madrid; Design of the Green Railway Corridor (Madrid); Urban remodeling of the district of Lavapiés Madrid; Remodeling of the Paseo de la Castellana Madrid Phase 1; Museum and Stove of the Park Juan Carlos I Madrid; Nine bridges, Madrid; New Park of Pradolongo, Madrid; Centro de Mayores, Madrid; Master Plan for the new city of Saemangeum, South Korea (5 million inhabitants); Park-Cemetery, Quito (Ecuador); Office tower, Costa Rica; Towers of houses and hotel (Ecuador); 8 bridges in Shanghai, China.

He has been linked to China since 2002, professionally and educationally, where he currently develops various projects, such as various bridges in Shanghai, or the computer city "MetaLight City". He has been a guest lecturer and lecturer at Tongji University (Shanghai), Tsing Hua (Beiging), Shenzhen, Guili. He was a guest curator at the Shenzhen Biennial - Hong Kong (2013-14) and at the Shanghai Biennale (2015), where he has exhibited his projects, works and theories.
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Published on: December 13, 2022
Cite: "Hypertechnology and tradition. Chemical and Microbiological Laboratory by Penelas Architects" METALOCUS. Accessed
<http://www.metalocus.es/en/news/hypertechnology-and-tradition-chemical-and-microbiological-laboratory-penelas-architects> ISSN 1139-6415
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