Contemporary

A very interesting building.

The continuity of the envelope on the façade and roof is only formal, not constructive. The façade solves water tightness by means of a drained cavity, while the roof does so using an absolutely waterproof material. From the outside, they look the same.

In the façade solution of this building we want to draw attention to two factors:

It is surprising how this facade makes a virtue of the sometimes uncomfortable transparency of the glass.
The succession of staggered and slightly overlapped planes that, either reflect the neighboring facades, or exhibit the daily life of the interior space, combined with opaque surfaces placed in different planes and rolling interior sunscreens, manages to create an abstract order that gives coherence to the whole.

Awarded the Pritzker in architecture, the value of this work is undeniable from a formal perspective. However, doubts arise when we consider the functional aspects of thermal and lighting comfort in a Mediterranean climate at 41 degrees latitude.

The façade of San Telmo museum manages to extract all possible design potential from the succession of layers. The surprising thing in this case is that the architects are not limited to the façade layers. In their proposal, they consider as layers the planes that follow one another when a transversal cut is made into the building. So the built volume and its limits, the façade and the mountain all merge.

It is not easy to solve the entire envelope of a building, both façade and roof, with a continuous mantle of slopes varying from 0% to 100%. Tightness in the façade plane, where gravity acts in our favour, has been entrusted to geometry and drainage. However, this solution is not possible on the roof. The changes of slope in a topography of rounded ridges generates practically zero slope planes, which can only be resolved with absolutely waterproof materials.

In this building by Stump & Schibli Architekten we want to highlight the wisdom of solving the blind area with continuous horizontal stripes along the façades, while the treatment of the openings is adapted to varying conditions in the courtyard façades and the more urban ones. 

Amazing!!! Apparently formal, exaggerated, gratuitous… nothing could be further from the truth!!!

This façade is covered by an extraordinary sun and rain screen. Try to drive the rain water to the inside… impossible!! Only a horrible wind could achieve that by moving water against gravity. 

About the filtering function: filt3rs.net

The façade solution for the Institut de Recerca of the Hospital de Sant Pau illustrates the collaboration of Pich-Aguilera Arquitectes with formalization very similar to that of the Leitat building. If we look at the naked image of the thermal and watertight envelope, the two buildings can hardly be distinguished. In addition, both are covered with a ceramic lattice that partially hides the inner closure from the sun.

Here we see a very interesting process of replacing a stick curtain wall with another, whilst keeping the building in use and without a provisional enclosure a few metres from the façade.