La Rioja Technology Transfer Centre, La Rioja, Spain

Located on the outskirts of Logroño, the capital of La Rioja region, the Technology Transfer Centre integrates several academic environments – a national IT training centre, a technology transfer centre for IT research and development and an incubator for IT-related businesses – into a single building.

The building is designed to form the educational facility as an integral part of its natural landscape- producing an environment where nature and technology are intrinsically connected. This connection between the natural and artificial is also a trademark of the region, known for its wines and distinguished agricultural products.

The building is designed as a linear structure to both provide flexible educational spaces as well as maximise visual contact with the exterior. The classrooms and offices are organised along a corridor which threads through the building, bending to adjust to the surrounding topography and to distinguish each one of the institutions. This corridor, containing the public spaces of the building, opens to the outside gardens on one side. On the other side, the classrooms open towards the river landscape and the tree farms.

A series of ramps and terraces extend the interior spaces to the outside. These are wrapped by parallel lines of cables and greenery that form a green canopy over the circulation spaces and the interior spaces and provide solar protection for the fully glazed elevations. The roof of the building forms a public terrace overlooking the River Park, and is connected to the city level on either side by lifting bridges.

The Transfer Centre is a simple building but it provides plenty of opportunity for students and faculty to meet serendipitously along the exterior ramps, as well as the roof terrace, promoting knowledge exchange as well as contact with the surrounding context.

 

Architect - Foreign Office Architects

Comissioner's Head of Architecture - Jesus Alfaro Lafuente

Structural - Agusti Obiol Sanchez, Nacho Costales Calvo (BOMA S.L.)

Building Services - Ramon Cos Gavalda, Ricardo Bergay Fernandez (Grupo J G)

Landscape - Teresa Gali Izard

Cost/QS - Salvador Segura Juni (J/T Ardevol), Ignacio Choliz Herrera

Contractor - Vias Y Construcciones S.A., Construcciones José Martín S.A.

Photography - Jordi Todo, Ramon Pratt, Sergio Padura

Location

Logroño, Spain

Client

Regional Government of La Rioja

Date

2007

Total area

7,500m²