Office inside a block
The urban center of Córdoba is made up of dense blocks drilled by infinity of patios that give to this place the character of a space never fully known. When we go inside we find an amalgam of constructions from different eras where mass and emptiness alternate giving light, air and privacy to the inside. This territory of light and shadow is articulated throughout the collection of intermediate spaces that nourish the Mediterranean architectural heritage. Alleyways, open hallways, passages, corridors, courtyards, galleries, solariums and, finally, the fragmented landscape of the rooftops, make up a network of empty spaces that are interspersed in urban density providing continuity to the public space inside the block.
In this context, we have to project the expansion of an office located in a three-dwelling house plants by the incorporation of three new properties, two on the ground floor and one on the top floor. We believe the extension should happen without perceiving the transit between one area and another, thus guaranteeing the final cohesion of the resulting workspace. We propose the intervention trying to draw without raising the paper pencil, defining a continuous space that from the original offices penetrates through the inside the block, going through courtyards, entering the built density, hollowing out when it is demanded and peering into the existing courtyards until reaching the rooftop.
Floor, ceiling and cladding exterior are prolonged throughout the intervention to underline this continuous condition of the space. A elevated and heating concrete floor crosses interior and exterior spaces; the roof is solved with an acoustic panel of wooden slats inserted between the original concrete structure that acquires a new expressiveness when framed by it; finally, the volume of the new workspace is coated with galvanized steel sheets when meets the courtyards and is placed as volumes without supports, underlining its status as an autonomous device inserted in the gaps existing. The pieces of furniture, the areas defined by the acoustic ceiling and the ventilation provided by the courtyards delimit workplaces without divisions, nuancing the open plan.
The intervention seeks to profit the concepts of transparency, sequence and gradient typical of traditional articulations of the vast centers of the historic cities of the south of Spain, without lose sight of the willingness to sew the spaces available for enlargement. The space penetrates the mass in form of air and light as a continuous matter that belongs to the entire city and is domesticated inside the block.
