Strategic plan for the Beatriz Building

Place: Madrid
Date: 2009-2014
Developer: VYOSA
Design/direction: Eduardo Delgado Orusco
Team: Juan Enrique Álvarez, Sonia Díez, Rubén Sesmero, Miguel Quirós, Javier Rincón

 

Our firm was called to study the “update” for the last floors of the Beatriz Building, including its general installations; as no worked had been carried out since the building was originally opened in 1975. Since then, besides the projects for the seventh floor, the attic and the top piece we have designed other works with the same updating concept.

Projected by Eleuterio Población and destined for offices and commerce, the building boasts an interesting and innovative structural and functional solution, behind an monotonous load-bearing envelope composed of 6 pieces of prefabricated concrete. The building’s name pays tribute to the mythic figure of “La latina”, Mrs Beatriz Galindo. Eleuterio framed the building within the ‘Productivism’ trend, the floor was liberated from the building’s main structure, vertical communications and facilities were grouped which allowed a fluid stringing of successive floors as well as a good articulation between served and servant spaces.

A special opportunity arises relating to the height of the ceilings in which the intervention will take place, relating light and panoramic views. We also realize that the last two floors –the attic and the penthouse- were an exception to the general order in which the building was conceived. Our project tries to reintegrate these two floors in this order. For that matter we have tried to ‘read’ the traces of the central nucleus, to subsequently enclose it within a perimeter itinerary that engages together all the spaces of these two floors.