Plaza Bizkaia Office Building Bilbao, Biscay Commercial Project, Photo, Design, Property

Plaza Bizkaia Office Building

Commercial Development in Bilbao, northeast Spain – design by Federico Soriano, architect

16 Feb 2010

Plaza Bizkaia Offices

Location: Bilbao

Date built: 2006

Design: Estudio de arquitectura Federico Soriano y Asociados

Photographs: Alberto Cubas

Office Building in Bilbao

This building is generated by two direct decisions that respond to two specific problems. Firstly, to seek the most spacious, resistance structure on which to rest landscape-offices without altering a previously built underground parking. Secondly, to build a glass volume which actual shape shelters it from the direct climatic inclemency or uses it passively under favourable conditions.

Photos by Alberto Cubas

We have nothing else – no brief, no image and no architectural references. They will all come as a consequence of solution to these two parameters. For the first case, we defined aligned porticoes, reducing the necessary number of columns to a minimum and defining them in accordance with the office floor plan.

This grid does not match the existing underground plan, where the distances are defined by the dimensions of parked and moving vehicles.

To resolve this difference in the vertical alignment of the columns, an adaptation mechanism was inserted on the ground floor. This consisted of steeply slanting columns whose extremes seek to match the upper and lower alignments, tying them in with the floor slabs that work in traction.

These columns take on a sculptural expression of monumental proportions, and transform the ground floor into a public space; an extension of the square that spreads out in front of the building. In the second case, the geometric process of the different alignments on each floor was established by using different sections to study the solar angle and the different degrees of inclination of the sun’s rays in summer and winter. Two basic deformations were produced on a virtual symmetrical volume. Firstly, two standard sections facing each other were defined for the north and west orientations.

For the west orientation, the building is stepped, each floor cantilevered out from the one below in such a way that the building shades itself. For the northern orientation, this section is inverted, thus recovering the floor space lost in setbacks.

This generates different curves on each floor. The building begins to vibrate. We then added further layers of overlapping glazing. This was screenprinted with different degrees of density.

By setting them at the precise distance and only sreenprinting certain parts, we have made these printed panes of glass add on each other in summer, reducing the transparency of the wall in accordance with the angle of the sun’s rays and thus reducing the greenhouse effect, while in winter, total transparency is achieved and the sun heats up the interior, reducing the building’s overall energy consumption.

Plaza Bizkaia Office Bilbao – Building Information

Soriano & Arquitectos Asociados – Architects: Federico Soriano, Dolores Palacios
Project team: Marion Michaut, Lieven de Groote, Annie Martínez-Pita, Miguel San Millán.
Construction team: Marion Michaut, Christian Fink, Mónica García, Mónica Sedano, Marwan Zouein, Lucía Pérez, Leticia Sáez, Nazareth Gutiérrez
Structure: B.O.M.A. Lluis Moya
Installations: Úrculo Ingenieros. Rafael Úrculo
Construction team in site: Tecnei. Jon Rekalde, Pedro Domínguez
Competition: 2002 (1st prize) Project 2002-04 Construction: 2004-06

Photographer: Alberto Cubas

Plaza Bizkaia Office Building images / information from Federico Soriano

Location: Bilbao, Basque County, north east Spain, western Europe