The objective of this project has been the transformation of the existing building into a cultural and social center to provide it with institutional representativeness. At the beginning of our project we found a dark, half-buried building without any quality in its spaces, located inside a residential block in the city of Girona. The very varied program ranges from an auditorium with capacity for 180 people to an exhibition hall, a computer room and the administrative area.
We worked on the existing building to squeeze the expression capacity of the interior space and propose a powerful image both inside and outside.
The research into this new image has generated a new world of suggestive interiors. Taking Gaudí's Pedrera ceiling as a reference, we proposed a continuous but malleable and broken white ceiling, which would have its own expressive character and would be present in all the different spaces of the varied EspaiCaixa program. Likewise, the paradigm of the courtyard of lights of Casa Batlló defines the characteristics of the vertical walls separating space that, like Gaudí's tiles, are tinted in a blue-green tone to give freshness and provide luminosity.
Both the false ceiling and the glazed and tinted vertical walls give unity to the whole and guide the user.
The energetic interior appearance conveys its particularities to the façade of the building, which is partially tinted with the interior colors. Despite the contrast between EspaiCaixa and the residential buildings that surround it, the integration into the urban fabric is improved with respect to the existing building and it becomes an interior of a block traveled and frequented by neighbors.
