In a former military compound, laid out in accordance with the Eixample’s guidelines, the building is placed between two barracks converted into university facilities. It is an underground building looking for its façades. These are obtained through patios in one direction, and by protruding into the outer space, with the right size and in a constant direction, they order the new university complex’s central square, Ágora. Glass enclosures between walls become lights at night. A similarly constructed central skylight presides over the symmetrical space. Two of the courtyards house stairs for direct access to the interior where we find the Central Vestibule of the building itself which also serves as a connection between the two neighbouring university centres. The Assembly Hall and the Exhibition Hall can be accessed from the lobby. All spaces have natural light through patios and skylights. The project is complemented by a continuous strip that contains a circumstantial office of the Rector and the Reflection Room that was built with the painter Antoni Tàpies. The structure is of exposed concrete walls perpendicular to the façades. These are made of glass and are clad in stone in their extension to enclose the roof laterally and protrude into the square. The exterior and interior pavements are also made of stone, except for the bottoms of the patios, which are made of wood.

The ME hotel and the adjacent office building form a complex of two equivalent buildings in form and materials that are formally sought and complemented, located at one of the key junctions of Poblenou, which form Diagonal Avenue and Pere IV. The two buildings are separated by Lope de Vega Street, but neither is taken into account for their alignment. The hotel is lined with Pere IV and the offices on Diagonal. Both have very abstract volumes with certain common features that form a unitary set consisting of two sets (each of them is a building) of two overlapping prisms that slide together. When sliding, the upper prism is partially cantilevered. The office building is a screen on the Diagonal. Its cantilever is projected towards Lope de Vega Street. The hotel building, the more unique of the two, is a very slender skyscraper made up of two binoculars, one of which is four stories above the street. The cantilever marks the entrance to the building and opens onto Peter IV. So, the two cantilevers do not look at each other, but they are perceived as a single intervention when they look at each other. The treatment of both building’s façades is unitary, based on glazed materials or very smooth metals, looking for reflective surfaces that allow the unitary reading of the volume. The hotel’s windows are arranged in a checkered pattern to make it easier to read the façade as a unit and not to distort the plans. The hotel does not have any plinths and its façade treatment crashes against the floor in an undifferentiated manner. It is noteworthy that the separate buildings and the unit they form are not designed to be viewed from the front, but for the oblique views that force the streets in which they are located. Even the frontal view from the other side of the Diagonal leaves one of the two buildings oblique and reinforces the sculptural character of the whole. The complex is complemented by a service building located behind the hotel, solved in the same language, which due to being aligned with Peter IV and misaligned with Lope de Vega, the street where it leads, forms a square of quite attractive access from which there are some very interesting views of the building.

This building is an integral part of a special urban volumetric plan defined by three new emblematic buildings for the city: the ME Hotel and the Hines D123 office building, carried out by Dominique Perrault and AIA, and two residential buildings, one of them being an 80-metre-high tower, located at the intersection of Diagonal Avenue and Pere IV Street, made by AIA for Castro Construcciones. The project consists of the construction of a building the uniqueness of which lies in its height and shape. A massive volume of rectangular proportions, which is divided in half and cantilevered eight metres above the street, creating a terrace on the opposite side, energising the form of pure lines through the balance of the building. The façade envelops the building with a layer of bright lines, which is closed on the sides through black glass, and is revealed on the main faces through horizontal mirror stripes, playing with the viewing areas and the interior reflections and exteriors. This composition is designed in a proportion of opaque and transparent spaces that allow a diaphanous sensation in the interior, with a good control of solar radiation from the exterior. With a height of 51 metres and a total constructed area of 19,600 m2, the ground floor of the building is occupied by two commercial premises connected to the basement, and by the access and hall of the vertical communications core. The twelve floors are entirely intended to work as offices. Diaphanous floors of 800.00 m2, with spans of 14 metres, give the building optimal functional flexibility and multiple distribution possibilities. This has been made possible using a post-tensioned concrete floor system that has allowed the creation of completely open and spacious areas. The basic operation is that of two central cores of vertical communication, which contains four elevators and two stairs. On each side of the stairs are the spaces, where all the specific plant facilities are located, together with the risers and air extraction ducts, as well as the sanitary services of each floor. The air conditioning system chosen is VRV with recovery to be able to pass cold or heat from the spaces on the east façade to the west without energy costs. Below ground level, there are 8,800 m2 occupied by a car park that is developed by a system of half floors, on four levels, and has a capacity for 248 vehicles.

El pabellón situado en Tarragona se proyecta para albergar parte de la actividad deportiva a desarrollar en los juegos del mediterráneo 2018. Con capacidad para 5000 espectadores, ampliables a 7000, el edificio se resuelve en un solo volumen de planta oval y cubierta abovedada, desarrollado básicamente en dos niveles. Unas dimensiones de pista de 95x65 metros, permite el uso simultáneo de tres pistas de balonmano o futsal transversalmente, proporcionando una gran versatilidad al equipamiento. El edificio aparece parcialmente semienterrado, hecho que permite suavizar su presencia en el paisaje, a la vez que mejora notablemente su eficiencia energética. El acceso público se realiza desde la fachada norte, accediendo al nivel superior de gradería sobre pista, donde un gran anillo permite recorrer perimetralmente todo el pabellón, que permite obtener un control general del recinto de forma unitaria y establecer una relación visual permeable con el entorno, y acceder a su vez a las graderías altas que aparecen a lo largo de los costados este y oeste de la pista. En la fachada sur, el pabellón recupera toda la dimensión, siendo éste el lado acceso habitual de los deportistas. En este punto de acceso se sitúa el nivel de pista y los vestuarios y servicios complementarios a su alrededor, resolviendo el resto de programa en el nivel superior de graderías. El edificio se plantea como un triple orden de un peristilo de lamas cerámicas que se van orientando en función de su posición respecto al sol, a la altura del primer y segundo nivel, y de mayor transparencia a nivel de planta de acceso. Lamas y cubierta se plantean en cerámica como material principal haciendo referencia a la antigua Tarraco romana, a nivel de las lamas, mientras que un cerramiento de policarbonato celular y modular de ventanas practicables, mantienen la estanqueidad del edificio en su plano interior. Una doble piel que confiere al edificio unas altas prestaciones de confort y que unido al gran lucernario central de la cubierta, permite disfrutar y controlar una elevada calidad de iluminación natural en todo el edificio. Se dispone de ventanas motorizadas que permiten un control y gestión de la ventilación natural que combinados con la inclusión de pozos canadienses para la renovación del aire, permite resolver la climatización de uso diario de forma pasiva.

The building, a triple multi-sports hall, is the result of a competition won by Barcelona City Council, carried out in collaboration with BB arquitectes and Gustavo Gili. The large volume that the extensive functional program generates in relation to the reduced size of the site and the density of nearby buildings proposes to semi-underground an important part of the sports complex, ensuring, through section mechanisms, good lighting and natural ventilation as well as convenient access/evacuation to the lower parts. With this semi-underground, apart from reducing the visual impact considerably and obtaining important energy gains thanks to reducing its exposed surfaces, a gain is obtained in the urban public space. By withdrawing the building from the road alignment, a free cushion is guaranteed that resolves the access as well as the complicated urban plot at this point. A free public space is generated that acts as the urban foyer of the complex and significantly improves the integration of the building in its immediate environment, moving the outside of the square to the inside of the stands on the main court. The proposed construction system is born from the recovery of the memory of local construction traditions based on ceramics from the beginning of the 20th century. We therefore link a craft tradition with a post-industrial attitude by proposing systems based on industrialised ceramics. A building designed for use, where the materials are shown as they are, contributing sensorial qualities by themselves. They are the same materials that are repeated in all the spaces of the complex, which generates the feeling of a whole, although each of them can be interpreted individually; ceramics, wood, concrete... these are the materials for which the building is recognisable. In the skin of the building, the ceramics adapt to the different needs and orientations of the façades. In all of them, empty and full spaces alternate, as well as opaque and translucent or transparent parts in different ways. The opaque parts are "broken" with the use of different textures and colours of ceramic so that the complex is broken up, while controlling the natural light that bathes the building inside. A unique roof is proposed for the above-ground building, made up of subtle inverted vaults that appear on the façade and that link, albeit indirectly, with the order and presence of the vaults of the neighbouring roofs of the box seats building, as another mechanism for integration and recognition of the strength and uniqueness of the neighbourhood.