The new offices in Gracia, a district in Barcelona, occupy the ground floor of a building previously taken up by a textile workshop.
Certain signs of the former activity, such as some of the transmission shafts suspended from the ceiling, have been conserved as direct testimony of the short history of the building.
The proposed program included two types of substantially different elements.
On one hand it was necessary to develop a series of individualized work spaces
for the graphic designers, which had to incorporate drafting tables, filing
cabinets and cupboards of all types; these work units also had to be easy
to adapt to future changes in the organization of the space.
The
functional framework was completed with closed offices, a large meeting room,
other smaller meeting rooms and, finally, a photo lab.
The solution adopted consisted of grouping all the main activities in the
great inner bay and leaving alone the access area for reception, toilets and
small mobile meeting rooms.
The
furnishings equipping the great bay constituted by a series of totally mobile
artifacts, configured by various trimmed and shaped laminar elements, articulated
around a raised volume and supported on wheels. The absolute mobility of these
elements also permits free modification of the relationship between them,
that is, introducing complete variations into the general environment of the
office.
The only element of fixed architecture in this area is the loft running along one of the sides of the bay. The design and the materials used emphasize this character of provisionality, eventuality and permanent mobility that characterize the general organization of the space and the design of the elements introduced in its interior.
