Concrete wall

ISARHOF SCHOOL IN MUNICH (C.012)

This project is called Isarhof, wich means in german “the yards of Isar”, as a reference to those empty spaces trhough the school, and at the same time, the proximity to the Isar river. I wanted to implement a three-yard systemdifferentiated, where the urban life is developed and at the same time the day to day of the students. These gaps generated by the building itself and the elimination of some pre-existing ones, generate separate interstitial spaces.

The MACBA, the Film Library and now the new Massana school building: all of these are large public buildings inserted into a dense, small-grain urban structure. In the case of the Massana school, the strategy was to break down the volume into two bodies that do not even seem to be part of the same building, justifying the great hall.

Batlle and Roig designed a double skin façade for this office building in 22@. The inner layer meets the thermal requirements and those of air and water tightness, while the outer layer delimits the building volumetrically and seeks to improve its thermal behaviour.

It is difficult to understand the need for building this thick, load bearing, cast in-situ concrete wall hidden behind a light cladding composed of different layers: mineral wool, coloured ribbed plates and glass slats. On the inside, the concrete wall is again hidden, on this occasion by furniture. The climbing formwork system that made this wall possible had to be successively cut to adapt to the changes in the diameter and curvature of the tower. The preparation of the reinforcement must have been equally difficult.