Work.- Consulting agency: Centre Gestor Lleida S.A.
Project execution permit.- june 1997
Beginning and end of the work.-  Decenber 1997 to July 1998
Location.-  Rambla d'Aragó 23, Lleida (Segrià)
 

Architect.- Salvador Giné i Macià
Technical Architect.- Emili Fornells i Arnaiz
Collaborators.- 
Structure.- Cabezas & Gongora
Facilities.- Carles Borrás i Terés. Enginyer Industrial. 

Promoter.- Centre Gestor Lleida S.A.
Builder.- Construccions Tebon Alguaire S.L..
Metal structure.- Cemesa.
Curtain wall, alluminium millwork and glasses.- Miraball  S.L. (Technal / Ariño)
Metal fittings and steel.- Tallers Poldo
Inside divisions .- Radisa
Interior millwork, specific furniture and high density wooden pannels.- Alberto Lopez
Electricity and lighting.- Electricitat Gabarrell (Odelux / Iguzzini)
Air conditioning.- COMESA
Office furniture.- Kemen / Wilkhahn ( provided by Comercial J. Camacho S.A. i Buró Lleida S.L.)

Total built area.- 1.390 m2 (309 extended , 881 renovation and 200 for future renovation)
Total bulding budget (VAT included) .- 190.536.031 pts
Repercussion per built m2 .- 160.114 pts / m2
 

2.- OBJECTIVES AND CRITERIA.

 The aim was to renovate and extend a building in order to place the new premises of an agency devoted to employment, finantial and management consulting. 
 The companie's growth caused that some departments were placed at  different locations.   The purchase of the building allowed both, the concentration of the whole company in a single space, and updating its facilities. 
The building is in Rambla d'Aragó, where the electric company HECSA had its hedquarters for many years. The plot has a 10.95 m long façade and is  35,27 m deep. The old building had a depth of 23,45 m on the  ground level, and the three upper floors have a depth of 10m. 
The building has 7 floors (including the underground floor and the loft). The first  4 floors are occupied by offices and the upper 3 floors are homes for  executives.
The extension consisted of increasing the building area on the underground level, gound floor, loft and first floor to the maximum limit allowed (as the mentioned levels could take all the space of the plot) and the depth was kept at 10 m for the rest of the floors. 

A few criteria determining the architectural actions in the building: 

1.-  Big split between the old building and the extension. 
Thus achieving both, fitting both buildings and providing natural lighting and ventilation, and also making the extension evident through the double space left between the ground floor and the loft, and through the lineal skylight.  The loft is at a lower level in the extended part, in order to keep the maximum height in the house yard, and strengthen the split on the floors. 

2.- Inside cast of the building.
The old HECSA offices had a little skylight on the ground floor to lighten the reception hall. This has been renovated in order to make it a vertebrating element of the whole building. 
The building has been drilled in the centre of the ground floor, loft and first floor, in order to have a big skylight. 
Another use of this big eye is to allow visibility from different floors into the building and also to articulate spaces and mobility around it (passages, elevator, suspension stairway, etc) 
Special attention has been paid to the skylight wall that became an inside façade. The old cladding was removed, and the brick was exposed and painted in a light  straw colour which, together with the orientation, reflects the afternoon winter light through the glass wall into the inisde part of the floors.
The yard screens, together with the window opening devices protect from the sun and offer ventilation in the summer, producing an upward draft that allows to refresh and renovate the microclimate in a short time, reducing thus the use of air conditioning.

3.- Architecture dialog.
It was necessary to keep a natural dialog between the prior architecture and the extensions and renovations: 
The big split separating the yard extension from the prior building (point 1). The double skin treatment in the staircase wall versus the big cast inside.
The "new" white plaster plates and the "old" straw coloured brickbuilt wall . 
The façade of Rambla d'Aragó folows the same concept line of double skin. 
 
 
 

4.-Approach of the façade at Rambla d'Aragó. 
Considering the promoter's suggestion to make a new façade with curtain wall technique in order to represent the entrepreneurial spirit of the company, and considering the inadequacy of the balconies in the upper three floors to the new use, the plastic and compositive qualities of the façade were to be maintained.
The façade seeks to respond to both premises, a new skin not hiding, but highlighting volumes and interesting existing elements. The elastic skin that can be pierced allows to establish a balance between activites, by supporting the set plasticity (the old blaconies keep their old plates and the upper one becomes a gallery). 
The double skin work also seeks the contrast between textures:
The inside -existing adapted- (softer, coloured, more interior...)
The outside -new- (brilliant, tougher, glass, alluminium...)
 

5.- From façade to exposed party wall. 
The protagonism of the exposed party wall -due to the shortness of the neighbour building and to the omnipresence and perpendicular line of sight from the Rambla d'Aragó- deserved a façade treatment, and it was covered by the curtain wall skin, with plasterwork, and the company label on it.  

6.- Upper  linearity of the curtain wall.
In the same logic as the above concepts, the curtain wall and metal cladding of the party wall is broken in its upper line, and the façade is not fully covered.
The curtain wall continues along the reception hall ceiling to the inside offices. 
 
 
 
 

  Salvador Giné i Macià. October 1999