La Rioja Technology Transfer Centre

Location: Logroño, Spain

Client: Regional Government of La Rioja

Date: 2008 Completion

Total Area: 7,500m²

Budget: €21 million

Team credits:

FOA Partner in Charge: Alejandro Zaera-Polo

Project Architect: Pablo Ros Fernandez

Design Team: Kensuke Kishikawa, Jordi Pages I Ramon

Cost Consultant and Buildability advisors: Salvador Segura Juni (J/T Ardevol), Ignacio Choliz Herrera

Comissioner’s Head of Architecture: Jesus Alfaro Lafuente

Structural Engineers: Agusti Obiol Sanchez (BOMA S.L.) Nacho Costales Calvo (B BOMA S.L.)

Services Engineers: Ramon Cos Gavalda (Grupo J G) Ricardo Bergay Fernandez (Grupo J G)

Landscape Designer: Teresa Gali Izard

Contractor: Vias y Construcciones S.A., Construcciones José Martín S.A.

Phographers: Jordi Todo, Ramon Pratt, Sergio Padura, Jakob Rope Systems

Sited on the outskirts of Logroño, the capital of La Rioja region, the Technology Transfer Centre integrates a national education centre dedicated to IT training, a technology transfer centre dedicated to IT research and development and an incubator for IT-related businesses in a single organisation with shared functions, without losing their separate identities.

Our project is an attempt to make the building an integral part of the landscape both as a topographical event and as an experience, 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 sophisticated agricultural products. The building’s aim is to integrate the landscape into the building’s spaces. It adopts a linear structure which maximises contact with the outside and is ideal for the educational purpose of the building. The classrooms and offices which constitute most of the functional spaces are organised along a corridor space which threads through the building, bending to adjust to the surrounding topography and to provide a different identity to 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 rooms open towards the river landscape and farmlands.

A series of ramps and terraces extend the interior spaces to the outside and provide solar protection for the fully glazed façades. The roof of the building forms a public promenade over the River Park, connected to the city level on either side by lifting bridges. The building’s volume is surrounded by a green canopy which produces a shaded microclimate around the transparent volume: a glass box under a vineyard.