New more sustainable College of Architects of Córdoba headquarters

Project description by Adolfo Mondejar, Pablo Mondejar, Dolores Gómez Macedo Arquitectos

THREE PLACES

In 2008 the College of Architects of the Province of Córdoba and FADEA decided to launch the Preliminary Contest on its new headquarters, located in the same place where it worked.

The winning idea developed in the preliminary draft competition and subsequently raised in the elaboration of the executive project contemplates a new institutional building from three places.

The first place (sub floor), develops the auditorium, reason for the discussion, interaction, events and proposals of the architects, proposes a unique or subdivided space in sectors for minor or overlapping activities.

The second place (ground floor), proposes a meeting place, attention and work, is resolved through a free space, proposed by a large structure that houses the functions that have to do with the profession, the files, the registration, the attention , the consultation on professional practice.

The third (terrace), is open and green, proposes a place of exhibitions, meeting, proposals in an open space that can be modified in relation to the events that are proposed, makes a large green courtyard to the heart of the existing block.

The building proposes an unfinished structure that can last over time and be modified with the changes that occur in the exercise of the profession.

The free floor allows a shared and transparent development of the institution of all architects.

It is solved with a concrete structure with no other finish, where all the facilities are in sight, being the only proposed expression, space, light, technology.

Its facade is resolved in an interior-exterior space that proposes a wide income on a blind volume of concrete, as a pause in the development of the street and extension of the public space, where the existing jacaranda of the old headquarters (which was taken care of during the extensive development of the work), is the protagonist of the interior and exterior relationship of income and successive higher spaces.

The building expresses, and discovers the manifestation of time, the fabric of the city, the patrimony formed by the different medians that surround it, being able to make its anchoring understood, its relationship in the different stories proposed with the neighboring buildings.

The development of the peripheral green will allow the interior to change permanently in the different seasons of the year.

The proposal of its facades and interiors expresses an austere building, solved in concrete, without stridency, always trying to leave space and matter uncovered, without disturbances of unnecessary cladding and enclosures.

A story is proposed through multiple spaces of interior and exterior relationship, integrating into a complex fabric, full of textures, links, history, product of its preexistence reported in the time and space of our city.

IDEA AND PROGRAM

The project developed faithfully followed the original idea that allowed us to win the contest (2008), based mainly on the use of the space generated in the heart of the block, raising the development of the main public activities of the institution, in spatially integrated areas, contained by a structure-enclosure of concrete seen and carpentry with a frank glazing towards the patios-slits of lighting and ventilation raised towards the medians of this great central space located in the heart of apple.

The green square allows a large central stone quarry that the institution and neighbors enjoy, on the other hand it allows the recovery of rainwater and the growth of different vegetables.

STRUCTURE AND FINISHES.

We understand that, because of the meaning of the building, the material must be representative of the history and the work of the architects.

The structure of the squares is solved in concrete by means of an enclosed system (16 meters) that contains the acoustic sound-absorbing elements in ceilings that cause the climatic and light conditioning of the building resolved with suspended ceilings of smooth and stripped appearance.

The concrete seen is expressed with different textures, of boards, with phenolic formwork and hammered by necessity in some situations, materializing the medians as a support for the interior glazed boxes, these are resolved with tempered glass without carpentry.

The floors and coverings are monolithic accompanying the design of their free spaces.