National Water Company Tower

RICARDO One of the meanings of ON-A is the combination of “emotion” and “architecture”, but another is “innovation” and “architecture”. How do you combine the two concepts (emotion and innovation) in your projects? What kind of emotions do you want to elicit in the inhabitants or the people who see your buildings?

JORDI We try to design buildings that convey something, beyond just resolving a program.

In the Lounge Bar, which is called “5 Senses”, the client’s original idea was to awaken the senses. That’s why we worked with lights, atmospheres, even smells. The goal was to bring out totally different emotions based on theme nights. Based on that, we understand emotion as the creation of singular, special spaces that evoke feelings.

Innovating in program, materials and spaces is an undercurrent in our architecture.

EDUARDO We did something similar with Sant Pau Cultural Center. We needed to cover the cloisters to protect the existing chapel, so we created a new space using a new way of handling light. Up to that point, the cloister was only lit by daylight. We tried to conjure the vision of being inside a Gothic cathedral, using the openings of a honeycomb geometry, like a huge stained-glass window with ETFE membranes, like large domes inspired by cathedrals. That’s how we resolved the program while also adding emotion to the space.

RICARDO Another thing that is very present in your architecture is the use of color. At what point in your designs do you introduce it? What other architectural strategies do you use to generate emotional effects in spaces?

JORDI Everything comes from the commission itself. In the 5 Sentidos Lounge Bar, we had to create different environments: from being in a jungle to a glacial atmosphere. In the case of the Cricursa stand, the colors coincide with the corporate image. In Sant Pau Cultural Center, we used white cones so they would accurately reflect the warmth of natural light. For the Drassanes Metro Station, the colors and the use of light were dictated by the program. Initially, the station was all dark and black. Its users are often tourists, and there were problems with theft and people falling on the platforms due to poor lighting. Those problems were solved by the new configuration, the light colors, the red from the TMB brand in the connecting tunnels, and the right lighting. The façade of the Valdaya Wineries uses shades that are reminiscent of the color of wine. In fact, we suggested pieces that would recall a bunch of grapes, with reddish and burgundy tones. The pavement was made of hexagonal pieces in varied green tones, imitating a vineyard. Each design has its own history, but we always try to look for the emotions that it can evoke.

Drassanes Metro Station, Barcelona.

This hotel offers unique, spacious and comfortable rooms designed in keeping with the latest technology in terms of their features and characteristics.

Urban Hotel, Almería.

SPINNER TOWER CAMPUS

SPAIN

The Spinner Tower Campus is a proposal for the university housing competition located in the city of Zaragoza. The project consists on a set of 504 homes grouped in 12 towers where the spaces of meeting and cohabitation are maximized.

On the ground floor of the towers there are four identical buildings with a triangular layout, but with different orientations. This floor is where the access to the towers and the campus shops are located. The interstitial space between buildings is occupied by a parking lot ventilated in a natural way. The first floor has been designed as a large garden for the tower inhabitants, a huge platform that connects the four buildings giving place to a space of leisure and other establishments which promote community life. The four residential towers are erected from the first floor onwards, each of them with seven floors and seven houses each floor. The configuration of the floor responds to a radial shape around a central atrium which allows natural ventilation, concentrating the services and the rooms in the central zone to maximize the living space-dining room-studio thus achieving that this space opens up to the façade.

The modulation of the residencies allows to achieve multiple options of distribution of the floor, which will be formally translated onto the façade. This, together with the non-orthogonal layout of the towers gives place to a set of great richness, observable from any perspective or angle.