Three large pieces and a small, fixed control core between large landscapes of tracks were the starting point of the operating centre of the Railways of the Generalitat de Catalunya in Rubí, where the workshops and part of the offices are gathered, thus, away from the congestion of the central metropolitan area. It is a large-scale intervention – the large building has more surface area than a block of Cerdà’s Eixample – close to the urban centre of Rubí and the B-30 motorway. The 90x130m workshop building is divided into three main bays, as the need to have three crane bridges made sense for a single bay. Each of them is saved by an identical truss that moves with the curvature of the roof, valued by a continuous zenithal light. This steel ship is surrounded by a two-story precast concrete structure - two different techniques and a possibility to distribute skills, deadlines and jobs. Consequently, concrete slabs and corrugated steel lacquered sheets are also alternated. In one of the test rooms, the dining rooms, the separation spaces or conference rooms are attached to the body of offices with freer forms, all more connected and adapted to the limits of the land, and open with a panoramic window to the vision of the metropolitan mobility of the trains themselves or of the nearby motorways.

The project is initially considered by understanding its immediate environment and its relationship with the city and the landscape. On a city scale, we understand Rubí as a city the growth of which has been supported by a geographical line formed by the stream and the foot of a small set of mountains. The project is located on this line but not immersed in a consolidated urban terrain, but at that point where the line gives up its firmness to become incorporated into the landscape. In this way, it invites you to direct your gaze towards the green of the stream. On the scale of the site and the immediate surroundings, it is punctuated in a plot of an industrial estate, where it forms part of a row of warehouses. With respect to this row, the offices are located at the end, giving themselves immediately in contact with the trees and the green. Once again, the look at the landscape is reaffirmed. Considering that the programme of the project is offices in the middle of an industrial estate, it is proposed to enhance through the elements of the façade to avoid the gaze facing the buildings and all the implicit activity of the estate. It is interesting to look at the landscape. It is proposed to work with different flat and non-flat prefabricated parts. The relationship between these pieces is what will allow us, not only the existence of different types of void, but also to control and direct the visions. At the same time, it allows us to differentiate systems for each façade, according to the needs of each one and the proximity to the landscape. The arrangement of these non-flat parts in plan establishes an exterior-interior relationship, incorporating small exterior spaces into the offices and projecting to the central core. The floor plan starts from the core where all the services, community and private, of each office are accumulated. The treatment of this core is worked on as another part of the façade, as a public part, so that the space proper to the offices wanders between two skins, which due to their own thickness become filters, filters between interior and exterior, and between public and private.

This is a large-scale expansion intervention of the workshop building and main building of the FGC Operational Centre in Rubí with three main objectives: - To cover the old road of dynamic tests for storage and museumisation of various historical units. - To provide a new façade and image to the access street to the centre, while giving greater privacy to the homes in the nearest suburban core. - To act as an exhibitor of the historical units towards the car park and access to the centre's offices. The scale of the workshop and office building - with a larger surface area than a block of the Cerdà plan - and the length of the dynamic test track to be covered, required a forceful and symbolic intervention, which at the same time give material and volumetric continuity to the centre and provide a contemporary image in tune with the institution's current requirements. A long structure is projected adjacent to the workshop building of 173.00m in length and continuous section in the form of an arch that avoids the problem of distinguishing between façade and roof and that, resting on the existing concrete wall that delimits the perimeter from the centre and formally separating from the workshop building, it creates an optimal transition between the existing curved and inclined roofs and the street, towards which it becomes the new image. This structure is clad on the outside with continuous smooth sheet metal with a tab joint, avoiding any joint in section and providing a continuous rhythm along the entire length of the new ship, only interrupted by the emergency staircase - an expressly unique volume, exempt from the main structure— and by the spelling of large corporate letters that subtly present the institution and mark the main access. Inside, this structure is presented in a rational and completely naked way, enhancing its tectonic beauty and marking a constant rhythm that is surprising for its length. The inner lining of the arched enclosure is also made of sheet metal - this grooved, indented, micro-perforated and arranged over large thicknesses of thermal and acoustic insulation - in order to minimise internal reverberation and acoustic pollution towards the outside, in case of specific movement of historical units. When you reach the main entrance to the centre, the new nave opens up towards the offices through a large, glazed façade from top to bottom that allows you to observe the historical units from the outside, like a great heritage showcase. This façade disintegrates into a lower, irregular volume when it reaches the end of the unit, highlighting its access through a double pillar and revealing part of the inner face of the arched roof. This decomposed and lighter end of the main unit adapts kindlier to the set of elements of the main entrance to the centre and still allows a glimpse of the original workshop space from the street. In short, a large and forceful infrastructural intervention that strengthens the railway image of the centre by means of its extensive length and makes it possible to extend the useful life of one of the most unique sets of FGC.