The team lead by Díaz y Díaz Arquitectos and Miba Architects have won the First Prize in the ideas competition with a jury intervention, for the reorganization of the Administrative Complex of the Xunta de Galicia in San Caetano, Santiago de Compostela.
The internal renovation of the San Caetano administrative complex in Santiago, the main headquarters of the Galicia Xunta, will cost a maximum of 29 million euros and the works will take three years to be finished.
Project description by Díaz y Díaz Arquitectos and Miba Architects
This proposal seeks to provide an effective solution to the integral reorganization of the San Caetano Complex. The biggest problem is to give shelter to all workers during the execution of the work, hence the creation of a new built volume. This New Building will act as a sponge capable of absorbing staff transfers during the works, and once executed, will be part of the new offices, providing relationship areas and allowing the sponging and reorganization of current work spaces, as well as the improvement of the reconciliation of work and family life.
The execution of the New Building may be carried out if necessary in three phases accompanied by those of the works in the existing buildings, organized on a longitudinal axis parallel to the existing buildings. The creation of this New Building, together with the proposed actions on the existing buildings, will allow a comprehensive reorganization of the workspaces, eliminating those that, today, suffer from poor natural lighting. It will also allow a complete redefinition of circulations and accessibility. Finally, decisively influencing the perception of the whole, through a new piece of contemporary architecture, will provide a new institutional image.
The basic design criteria that have been adopted to develop this architectural proposal are the following:
1. Transfer of the current landscaped roof of the semi-underground building, to the New Building, supported by the structure of the basement floor. Generated a more public covered space.
2. Creation of two new transversal axes of circulation and accessibility: the boulevards. For its construction it will be necessary to carry out partial demolitions, which will affect the General Registry and part of the building in the basement.
3. The result of this approach is to obtain an orthogonal plot of horizontal and vertical circulations with new vertical communication cores, which allows total accessibility and communicability between spaces, with a rich and varied range of common or segregated circulations, interiors and outdoor, public or private, on all floors of the complex. Obtaining in this way a flexible space, capable of adapting to future needs without condemning the quality of the worker, minimizing the works of adaptation that are necessary in the future, since these would be exclusively of elements of compartmentalization and furniture.
4. The creation of the New Building, which will absorb an important part of the jobs, will allow the remodeling of existing buildings based on the same criteria of flexibility and adaptability, in addition to allowing the elimination of jobs in the basement and basement.
A new piece that is supported and runs between the existing, looking for the flexibility and quality of the spaces. A new dialogue between public and private.
