La Rioja Technology Transfer Centre
The complex is located in the outskirts of Logroño, the capital of La Rioja Region and is due to host three different institutions dedicated to the education, research and the nurturing of individuals and companies in the sector of world-wide-web services and technology. The centres to be hosted in the complex are:
A National Educational Centre dedicated to training people in the world-wide-web related sector.
A Centre for Technology Transfer where researchers and special courses on world-wide-web related services and technologies.
An Incubator for Companies offering services on world-wide-web related sector.
The site is a beautiful stretch of low-land bordering the eastside of the Iregua River with a plateau at level +380m above sea level which is currently used by the Government of La Rioja as a tree farm and an animal hospital for local endangered species. The land is planned to become part of the Metropolitan Park System with a major commercial centre, a housing development and water purifying plant on the north and to the south with the Zaragoza Avenue; a major traffic artery on the northern outskirts of Logroño, which runs at approximately the same level as the urban developments to the west of the site.
The main accesses to the site are from the Zaragoza Avenue, where the bus public transport is concentrated and from where the vehicular access to the site is located, and from the west, where a high density urban fabric will be operational in two years. The site will also become accessible by pedestrians from the river side, once the Iregua River Park becomes operative.
The access road is placed along the west edge of the site, that is formed as a very steep drop, formed with retaining walls and is a narrow and sloped road linking the +380m level at Zaragoza Avenue with the + 371m of the site. This roadway, named Camino de los Lirios, is bordered by very large and leafy Elm trees, which constitute one of the most valuable elements of the site.
Our project emerges as an attempt to make the building an integral part of the landscape, both as a topographical event and as an experience, trying to produce an environment where nature and technology become intrinsically connected.
The building is organised in such a way that the three institutions become part of a single organisation, allowing the collective facilities to be shared between the three institutions, and to minimize the security, cleaning and maintenance costs and also aims to maximise the integration of the landscape into the buildings spaces, and adopts a linear structure that maximises the surface of contact with the outside. The classrooms and offices that constitute the majority of the functional spaces in the building are organised along a corridor space that threads through all the dependencies. The corridor space will contain the public spaces of the building, opened to the outside gardens and the rooms will be opened on the other side of the building towards the river landscape and the tree farms. This linear structure has been placed roughly on a north-south orientation, parallel to the topographical cornice that forms the western edge to the site. Such location allows the building to surround the Elms along the Camino de Los Lírios, claiming the slope as an internal garden featuring the trees. The building has been organised into a two storey bundled structure that encloses part of the site as a more internalised outside space, branching out on different levels to connect both with the surrounding urban levels and with the future River Park. On a smaller scale, the western face of the building provides terraces looking towards the Elm garden, and shredding into open-air ramps establishing topographical continuities between the building and the garden. The sectional dislocation between the two floors of the building automatically generates these terraces and a cantilever on the East facade will protect the fully glazed facade from the sun. The roof of the building becomes a kind of public belvedere over the river park, being connected to the city level on two ends through lifting bridges. A green pergola extends from this level to protect the glazed facade from direct sun exposure.
