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Caja Granada Savings Bank (1)

The building is a large concrete cube built atop a podium that houses parking, archives, and processing centers. Offices are arranged within the cube around a central courtyard that gathers and reflects sunlight throughout the building. The cube traps sunlight within its thick concrete and stone walls to serve as an "impluvium of light" that illuminates the interior offices and spaces.

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Alexia Espinás
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156 views31 pages

Caja Granada Savings Bank (1)

The building is a large concrete cube built atop a podium that houses parking, archives, and processing centers. Offices are arranged within the cube around a central courtyard that gathers and reflects sunlight throughout the building. The cube traps sunlight within its thick concrete and stone walls to serve as an "impluvium of light" that illuminates the interior offices and spaces.

Uploaded by

Alexia Espinás
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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CAJA GRANADA SAVINGS BANK Granada.

2001
IMPLUVIUM OF LIGHT

A large cube is built on top of a podium flanked by two courtyards.

The parking areas, archives and Data Processing Center are accommodated in this
podium. Offices are arranged inside the cube on seven floors around the central interior
courtyard. The cube is built on a 3 x 3 x 3m grid of reinforced concrete that in the roof
serves as a light-gathering mechanism, the central theme of this building. The two
facades to the south operate as a “brise-soleil” and, filtering this powerful light, illuminate
the areas of open offices. The two facades to the north, serving the individual offices,
receive the homogeneous and continuous light of this orientation and are closed to the
exterior by means of a stone and glass cladding.

The central interior courtyard, a true “impluvium of light”, gathers the solid sunlight through
the skylights and reflects it against the alabaster surfaces of the walls that enclose the
corridors to the north, increasing the illumination of the open offices opposite. The roof
rests on four huge columns of exposed concrete. Functionally, the building is compact,
flexible and simple.

In summary, it is a concrete and stone box that traps sunlight within to serve the functions
carried out within this “impluvium of light”.
Nueva Sede Central de la Caja General de Ahorros Granada Alberto campo Baeza

CREDITS

● Architect:
Alberto Campo Baeza

● Architect collaborators:
Felipe Samarán Saló

Ignacio Aguirre López


Gonzalo Torcal Fernández-Corugedo
Emilio Delgado Martos
Raúl del Valle
María Concepción Pérez Gutiérrez
Tomás García Píriz

● Structure architect:
Andrés Rubio Morán
Víctor Martínez Segovia

● Engineer:
Rafael Úrculo Aramburu

● Client:
Caja General de Ahorros de Granada

● Location:
Carretera de Armilla S/n Granada, España

● Contractor:
OHL (A. Padilla), LKS (F. Varela)

● Competition: 1992
● Design date: 1998
● Construction period: 1999-2001

pg. 1
Headquarters of a Bank in GRANADA - Spain
Alberto Campo Baeza, architect

IDEA “IMPLUVIUM” of LIGHT

SPACE ∗ STEREOTOMIC CONTAINER BOX ( Stereotomic frame


Supporting frame )
With thick concrete and stone walls and Shade plus.
∗ TECTONIC CONTAINED BOX
With thin glass and alabaster skins and Light.

LIGHT SOLID LIGHT piercing space


Through skylights in the thick roof
dancing over
REFLECTED LIGHT filling space
Through the alabaster as the thin skin

MATERIALS Quiet materials Moving materials


Concrete Light
Iron Shadows
Glass Brightness
Stone Darkness
Alabaster

FUNCTION Landscape offices


Single offices

CIRCULATION Perimetral ring


4 equidistant vertical cores

FRAME Reinforced concrete Grid (Stereotomic box )


Iron Grid (Tectonic box )

∗ Stereotomic and Tectonic are terms used here in the sense used by KENNETH
FRAMPTON.
Container and Contained are terms used here in the sense used by HANS SEDLMAYR
A A

B B

SECCIÓN ALA NORTE

SECCION A-A

SECCION B-B

ALZADO DE ALABASTRO

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