Completion Date: July 2009
Owner: Roca Sanitario, S.A.
Program: A 26,910-square-foot brand showcase for the Spanish bathroom-fixture company, with offices and a garden at the basement level, a museum of the brand on the ground floor, a showroom on the first floor, and an event space on the second floor.
Design concept and solution: The architects sought to build Roca a beacon for its brand, a place with an atmosphere compelling enough to attract shoppers, institutional clients, and pedestrians alike. They chose a simple structure—a low-slung rectangle—and clad it in a semitransparent shimmering glass that seems to crinkle, distorting views from both the exterior and interior. The facade is composed of thousands of tall, narrow glass panels sandwiched together like a collapsed folding fan, so that the skinniest side of the panels faces outward. The arrangement bounces light unpredictably, causing viewers looking outside to perceive an altered landscape in which trees and passersby appear to be where they are not and double images abound. To enhance this weightless, almost virtualized experience, the OAB team fitted the interior with slick materials: ceramic flooring, foam tetrahedron walls, a false ceiling in stainless steel. Interactive features such as presence detectors, directional loudspeakers, and virtual people projected life-size onto plasma screens respond to visitors as they move through the space. At night, lighting programs for the 4,200 white LEDs on the Roca gallery's exterior seem to transform the facade from solid to liquid.
Total construction cost: €8.2 million
Architect:
OAB OFFICE OF ARCHITECTURE
Ferrater & Asociados
Balmes 145 Bajos
08008 Barcelona
SPAIN
t +34 93 238 51 36
f +34 93 416 13 06
www.ferrater.com
oab@ferrater.com
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