Located on the Technological Campus of the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) in Bilbao, this new building is in-keeping with the remodelling of the University Campus within the “Campus of International Excellence Program”, nominated by the Ministry of Education in 2010 in collaboration with the Université de Bordeaux (France). Due to the university’s request and to its strategic location within the city, it is intended for this new building, which houses the Mining, Civil and Industrial Technical Engineering Schools, to become an architectonic reference thanks to its image by introducing a modern, quality design in line with the Institution it represents. For this purpose, apart from a very careful volumetric composition which deals with the volume restrictions imposed by the Development Plan, the logo designed by Eduardo Chillida has been included in the façade design, in the perforated steel and golden double skinned one, to be more precise.
Being a large size and scale building in the city, with almost 45,000 built sq. meters and 10 stories high, the new building sets up a dialogue between architecture, its sculptural volume and its plastic one, represented by the UPV/EHU logo, created by Eduardo Chillida, which was designed with the authorization of his Foundation.
The exterior skin of golden perforated plate integrates the Chillida logo and grants unity to the whole building, camouflaging its great size. Furthermore, the building, being detached, seems divided by the black breach that separates the two university schools.
Throughout the whole design process, special emphasis was put in resolving the building as functional and flexible a manner as possible. Hence, two longitudinally functional corridors between supporting walls have been allocated along the long faรงades. One of them, the northeast facing one, shelters the classrooms and laboratories. The other, facing southwest and with smaller and more controlled openings, lodges all the offices. In the centre of the building there is a core of communication nuclei, toilets, building services and a patio for lighting purposes, with orange coloured polycarbonate.
In total, the building has 56 classrooms, 27 seminars, 7 study rooms, 238 offices for teachers, 9 meeting rooms, 45 teaching laboratories and 26 research laboratories apart from areas for managements, administration and services (auditoriums, board rooms, library, cafeteria, dining rooms, postgraduate classrooms, facilities and offices for technicians, etc.) All the building services have been designed taking energy efficiency into account, and they have been engineered so that future maintenance investment is kept to a minimum. Plus, bioclimatic criteria have been present during their design, as well as in the architectonic one, thus enhancing energy saving. Thus, the use of a rain-water reuse system, sustainable lighting criteria, aero-thermal considerations and the installation of low temperature boilers will allow for CO2 emissions to be reduced by almost 900,000 kg per year and a substantial saving in energy costs CĂŠsar AzcĂĄrate Architect ACXT