The Modern Workspace Factoría Cultural in Matadero Madrid, Spain by Office for Strategic Spaces is perhaps typical of crisis-stricken Europe, and particularly Spain, where the architect has to find a way out of the opposing tensions of having no money and big needs. We used very few, cheap, and easy to install materials, and we tried to achieve with them as many different and distinct Modern Workspace as possible, adapted to different needs.
Modern Workspace Factoría Cultural is the adaptation of medium-sized hall in Matadero Madrid to house an incubator of cultural industries. The client’s money was very short but ambitions very high: what processes shape the Modern Workspace? Is Modern Workspace an agent for creativity? Could we program change as a tool for sustainability?
Modern Workspace Factoría Cultural
Thoughts of Designers
Our main worry was to make it possible, and to achieve that we needed to make it financially responsible and socially sustainable. At 105 euros/sq.m. we are very happy to have helped its basic architectural sustainability: to achieve a high social and usage impact for the money.
Construction-wise, the most economic pinewood from local, sustainable forests was used. Nearly 8,80 tons of CO2 are captured in its structure.A little more effort at the time of calculation and the ability to explain its spatial qualities (the fact that the modern workspace idea is maintained open and high-ceiling, and circulations clear) allowed us to argue the possibility of keeping the wood untreated with fire-retardant chemicals, which makes the environment free of noxious chemicals.
Three volumes near the entrance organize the modern workspace interior, folding and compressing the circulations around it. This creates a gradient, from compact to expansive, from busy to silent, that helps achieve variety in ultra modern workspace. In a little less than one month we built a reversible, vacuum-packed, 105 eur/m2 work, adaptable to the multitude of situations the client asked for.
To house the needed 120 modern workspace furniture units in a 399 sq. m. floor area (that needed to be further reduced to 340 sq. m. in order to maintain a public pass-through) was impossible, unless we found more space using the height of the hall. This created additional problems since there was not enough money to achieve the construction of a second floor by traditional means.
Modern Workspace Factoría Cultural Fact File:
- Architects: Office for Strategic Spaces
- Location: Paseo de la Chopera, 14, 28045 Madrid, Madrid, Spain
- Architect In Charge: Angel Borrego Cubero
- Area: 484.0 sqm
- Year: 2014
- Photographs: Simona Rota
- Builder: Dulsberg SL
- Structure: MOZ
- Cost: 105 eur/sq.m.
Here, We decided to use very simple building systems: the cheapest local pine lumber, all in the same standard size, which simplified the supply and construction of the structure, and multi-wall polycarbonate, very lightweight and in large sheets, which allowed for the walls to be finished in just one day.
We able to achieve 85 more sq.m., and crucially to split functions in two levels, which allows for more flexibility in use that the client is now making very good use of ideas of Modern Workspace.
We were able to build three small volumes, or architectural objects, that changed and modified the quality of the available interior modern workspace, naturally producing the diverse working areas we thought necessary.
These three distinct volumes near the entrance help organize the program, folding and compressing the circulations around it, making them as exact and compact as possible. This organization not only saves space by reducing circulation areas, but it creates a gradient, from compact to expansive, from busy to silent, that helps achieve the needed variety in modern workspace environments. Ref:archdaily
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The scarcity of means allowed us to research one spatial intuition- creative work, and workers, thrive in environments that seem not completely designed, not completely finished, Modern Workspace design idea that seem to be caught in the middle of a process, surprised by a change in conditions. It also allowed for small experiments in architecture, with demonstrative qualities.
Among them- the light fixtures are made up of the cut outs made to the vertical structural wood elements between the floor and the handrail, a ridiculously simple sound absorbing system corrects the sound conditions that would otherwise rely on heavy, traditional, and unaffordable wall construction.