Donostia International Physics Center
2968-VYA-EAS.ES-2022
Architect: vaillo+irigaray architects
Client: DIPC
Status: Competition (2022)
Clasification: 1 prize
Location: San Sebastian, Spain
Climate: Oceanic / maritime, Temperate
Materials: Concrete, Glass, Metal
Environment: Urban
Visualizer: Studio
Scale: 6.300 ㎡ Medium
Types: Education, Research center

A new building is proposed that extends the existing activity and has an emblematic character, enhancing the image of the DIPC as a research centre at the forefront of physics, through a new iconic and unique image, immediately recognisable.

Articulating part of the complex

The essential character of the building is the articulation of all the pieces of the plot, without losing its own character, proposing an organisation of all the external spaces while offering a welcoming environment.

A new layout that promotes encounters

Understanding science as a collective activity and given that the DIPC promotes the constant mee-ting and interaction between scientists as an essential means for the exchange of ideas and the advancement of knowledge, the new DIPC building promotes the collective and international natu-re of the centre’s activity. To this end, it proposes several strategies:

– Ordering the complex around high quality outdoor spaces.
– Organising the circulations and connections between the buildings.
– Harmoniously linking the different buildings.

External organisation

The proposal is based on the organisation of 2 platforms that organise the complex:

– Platform elevation +7,5m: organises the accesses to the complex. Representative and institutional.
– Platform elevation +15m: plaza for the relationship of the buildings. Internal connection and relationship.

The new building articulates both platforms, generating a new arrangement in the access to the centre and therefore offering a new institutional image; and on the other hand, it generates a rela-tionship square between the existing buildings, locating the spaces common to all of them: cafeteria, library, assembly hall, etc.

The flexible layout makes it easy to adapt to future remodelling, extensions, changes of users or the evolution of the Centre itself. The roofs of the new building have a dual function, with differentiated spaces for facilities and as meeting and interaction spaces for the building’s occupants.

– Priority to spaces for living, strolling and connection with mixed landscaped areas.
– New planting of trees and vegetation.
– Total communication between both levels: +7.5m and +15m.

This new exterior organisation proposes different accesses:

– A main access at elevation +7.5m. Main access and car park.
– A road access at elevation +15m, connected to a service road for the different buildings that have an exit at this elevation.
– Material transport access and access to the laboratories: loading and unloading area for lorries and vehicles directly connected to the exterior and with easy access to the interior of the building via the underground car park.
– Access to bicycles, motorbikes and outdoor parking spaces for visitors.

Integration of the building into its surroundings

The programme proposed in the competition rules implies an important volumetry in the whole. The organisational logic and functional requirements also determine an emphatic geometry. However, the building has the clear intention of approaching the scale of the existing buildings. To this end, the proposal establishes a strategy capable of distorting the scale of the action in order to achieve an appropriate integration:

– Organising two large horizontal platforms, connecting the different buildings.
– Minimise the geometry of the volume in height.
– Dividing the visual width of the building into 3 parts.
– Forming a plinth capable of generating a «corporate» façade to the DIPC as a whole.
– To make possible new landscaped and vegetated areas as a connection.

Team: Antonio Vaillo i Daniel, Juan Luis Irigaray Huarte, Yago Vaillo Uson | Post date: 21/12/2022 | Views: 1.323