Biokilab Laboratories by Taller Básico de Arquitectura

Spanish architects Taller Básico de Arquitectura hoisted this pair of concrete laboratories in northern Spain onto red metal stilts (+ slideshow).

Biokilab Laboratories by Taller Basico de Arquitectura

Taller Básico de Arquitectura used the red structures to create flat levels for the box-shaped labs, which sit on a gently sloping site at a technology park in Vitoria, close to Bilbao.

Biokilab Laboratories by Taller Basico de Arquitectura

Two beams cross beneath each block so the columns sit under the middle of each external wall. Each wall features a single square window or doorway.

Biokilab Laboratories by Taller Basico de Arquitectura

The square boxes sit at a slight angle to one another, almost touching but connected by a short bridge that’s glazed on the sides and above.

Biokilab Laboratories by Taller Basico de Arquitectura

The first block contains two small rooms and places to sit, while the second is a single open research space filled with work benches.

Biokilab Laboratories by Taller Basico de Arquitectura

Black window frames stand out against the clinical white interior.

Biokilab Laboratories by Taller Basico de Arquitectura

Taller Básico de Arquitectura have also designed a university complex in Zaragoza with a facade of overlapping white scales.

Biokilab Laboratories by Taller Basico de Arquitectura

We’ve also featured an earthquake-proof research laboratory in Tokyo and the world’s first mobile research facility in Antarctica.

See more laboratory design »
See more architecture and design in Spain »
See more concrete architecture »

Here’s some additional information from the architects:


Biokilab Laboratories

Two boxes in the air and a structure as architecture

The technologic Park of Vitoria colonises a little bit of nature. The quality of the site and its steepness make us question where to build. Two boxes made from air rise above the slope. The structure become architecture carries on its shoulders these boxes, showing a new plane.

Biokilab Laboratories by Taller Basico de Arquitectura

We investigate new ways of entering new places. Our place appears on a new level, determined by a four-legged and colourful structure. Two hollow boxes of concrete inhabit this new place on the structure. The whole complex in a permanent flight reveals a new gravity.

Biokilab Laboratories by Taller Basico de Arquitectura

Quadruped anatomies

The metallic structure that raises the boxes in the air is a quadruped structure. Its two horizontal elements form a cross inscribed in the square floor of the boxes. The sides of these floors measure twelve and thirteen meters respectively. The horizontal beams where the boxes rest avoid any interlocking.

Biokilab Laboratories by Taller Basico de Arquitectura

Consequently, the structure is visible in its entirety. The ends of the beams join vertical elements, which become the legs of this quadruped anatomy. Legs are as wide as beams, managing a continuity that makes all the pieces be understood as a unique element. Different lengths of the legs let the slope remain unaltered.

Biokilab Laboratories by Taller Basico de Arquitectura
Floor plan – click for larger image

The structure of the box

The box is thought as a second structure that replaces walls with beams and roofs with double slabs. The vertical faces of the box are beams as high as the box. These wall-beams have only one hole, defined by the maximum dimensions that let the beams work properly. Outside, the concrete structure is visible on all faces of the box.

Biokilab Laboratories by Taller Basico de Arquitectura
Long section – click for larger image

Inside, plasterboards cover the structure. The window frame, drawn as a single line, stays hidden between both sheets. The gap between sheets, both in walls and slabs, contains all building systems, as plumbing, electricity, voice and data. This net of systems solves the flexibility needed by the laboratory for its continuous transformation.

Biokilab Laboratories by Taller Basico de Arquitectura
Cross section – click for larger image

The post Biokilab Laboratories by
Taller Básico de Arquitectura
appeared first on Dezeen.

Health Sciences Faculty in Zaragoza by Taller Básico de Arquitectura

Spanish office Taller Básico de Arquitectura designed the facade of this university complex in Zaragoza as a layer of overlapping white scales (+ slideshow).

Health Faculty in Zaragoza by Taller Basico de Arquitectura

The Health Sciences Faculty joins two existing faculty buildings at San Jorge University‘s Villanueva de Gállego, several miles outside the city centre, and accommodates the school’s pharmacy, nursing and physiotherapy degrees.

Health Faculty in Zaragoza by Taller Basico de Arquitectura

Taller Básico de Arquitectura divided the facility into three L-shaped blocks that surround an informal courtyard. A gap between two of the structures leads through to this central space, where all three entrances are located.

Health Faculty in Zaragoza by Taller Basico de Arquitectura

“This faculty offers a new landscape of white scales breathing light on the outside, and it offers a big room opened to the sky on the inside,” say the architects.

Health Faculty in Zaragoza by Taller Basico de Arquitectura

The overlapping facade panels run along the outer edges of each two-storey block. Windows are positioned underneath every “scale” and are orientated to bring in daylight from the south and east.

Health Faculty in Zaragoza by Taller Basico de Arquitectura

Classrooms and laboratories are arranged in rows behind the outer facades, while connecting corridors run along behind the court-facing elevations, which feature exposed concrete surfaces.

Health Faculty in Zaragoza by Taller Basico de Arquitectura

A conference room, a cafe and a multi-purpose area are also included, shared out between the smaller wings of each block.

Health Faculty in Zaragoza by Taller Basico de Arquitectura

Other recently completed university buildings include a library with a robotic book retrieval system and an art and architecture college filled with double-height studios. See more university architecture.

Health Faculty in Zaragoza by Taller Basico de Arquitectura

Here’s a project description from Taller Básico de Arquitectura:


Health Faculty

The new Health Faculty of San Jorge University is located on a campus on the outskirts of Zaragoza city. Although it is a rural campus, the nature in it is scarce. The forest along the campus is the result of a man created operation. The surrounding buildings, the Rectory and Communications Faculty, respond to a contemporaneous architecture that lives besides that nature.

Health Faculty in Zaragoza by Taller Basico de Arquitectura

The Health Faculty joins the development of that little nature to reinforce the place where the existing buildings rest and where new buildings will do. The new faculty is not only another building; it becomes part of the new place. Architecture is thought as part of a new nature.

Health Faculty in Zaragoza by Taller Basico de Arquitectura

The building program is organised in three concave lines. These white and scaled lines unfold on the campus as part of its landscape. Inside, on two floors, classrooms and laboratories are organised for teaching and research. Each scale catches the light needed for each room. The dimensions and shape of rooms allow a big variability of use. Consequently, it is possible an academic reorganisation in an easy way. Light coming through scales can be controlled, so digital technologies can be used inside rooms. The minor creases of each line contain the most public rooms of the new faculty: cafeteria, conference room and multipurpose rooms.

Health Faculty in Zaragoza by Taller Basico de Arquitectura

The three lines enclose a big room open to the sky. All the access corridors to laboratories and classrooms face this big room. The square gives access to the three lines. Lines look at each other through the square, which discovers the inside of this mineral complex. The inside and outside relation of the faculty gets inverted. The concave outside happens to be the most interior room, and the convex inside becomes the most exterior place.

Health Faculty in Zaragoza by Taller Basico de Arquitectura

The mineral nature of this faculty in San Jorge University offers a new landscape of white scales breathing light on the outside, and it offers a big room opened to the sky on the inside.

Health Faculty in Zaragoza by Taller Basico de Arquitectura

Location: San Jorge University Campus. Highway A-23 Zaragoza-Huesca Km 299. Cp 50830 Villanueva De Gállego (Zaragoza)

Health Faculty in Zaragoza by Taller Basico de Arquitectura

Authors: Taller Básico De Arquitectura, Javier Pérez-Herreras, Fco. Javier Quintana De Uña
Collaborating architects: Edurne Pérez Díaz De Arcaya, David Santamaria Ozcoidi, Leire Zaldua Amundarain, Daniel Ruiz De Gordejuela Telleche, Irene Ajubita Díaz,
Developer: Universidad San Jorge Foundatoin
Building company: San Jorge Ute
Building engineer: Carlos Munilla Orera

Health Faculty in Zaragoza by Taller Basico de Arquitectura

Project: December 2009
Construction start date: 15/02/2010
Construction end date: 28/06/2012
Area: 8.853 sqm

Health Faculty in Zaragoza by Taller Basico de Arquitectura
Site plan – click for larger image
Health Faculty in Zaragoza by Taller Basico de Arquitectura
Ground floor plan – click for larger image
Health Faculty in Zaragoza by Taller Basico de Arquitectura
Sections – click for larger image
Health Faculty in Zaragoza by Taller Basico de Arquitectura
Elevations – click for larger image

The post Health Sciences Faculty in Zaragoza
by Taller Básico de Arquitectura
appeared first on Dezeen.