Taller Básico de Arquitectura

Biokilab Laboratories

Biokilab Laboratories
© José Manuel Cutillas

BIOKILAB LABORATORIES

Taller Básico De Arquitectura

ARCHITECTS
Taller Básico De Arquitectura

ARCHITECT IN CHARGE
Javier Pérez Herreras, Javier Quintana De Uña

CATEGORY
Laboratory

YEAR
2010

PHOTOGRAPHS
José Manuel Cutillas

CONSTRUCTION MANAGER
Javier Pérez Herreras, Javier Quintana De Uña, Edurne Pérez Díaz De Arcaya

LOCATION
Miñano Mayor, Spain

COLLABORATORS
Javier Pérez Herreras, Javier Quintana De Uña, Edurne Pérez Díaz De Arcaya, Xabier Ilundain Madurga, Leire Zaldua Amundarain, David Santamaria Ozcoidi, Laura Elvira Tejedor

Text description provided by architect.

TWO BOXES IN THE AIR AND A STRUCTURE AS ARCHITECTURE

The technologic Park of Vitoria colonizes a little bit of nature. The quality of the site and its steepness make us question where to build.

Biokilab Laboratories
© José Manuel Cutillas
Biokilab Laboratories
© José Manuel Cutillas

Two boxes made from air rise above the slope. The structure become architecture carries on its shoulders these boxes, showing a new plane.

This new place is signed by the novelty of the time of this research center. We investigate new ways of entering new places. Our place appears on a new level, determined by a four-legged and colorful structure.

Biokilab Laboratories
© José Manuel Cutillas
Biokilab Laboratories
© José Manuel Cutillas

Two hollow boxes of concrete inhabit this new place on the structure. The whole complex in a permanent flight reveals a new gravity.

QUADRUPED ANATOMIES 

The metallic structure that raises the boxes in the air is a quadruped structure. Its two horizontal elements form a cross inscribed in the square floor of the boxes.

Biokilab Laboratories
© José Manuel Cutillas
Biokilab Laboratories
© José Manuel Cutillas

The sides of these floors measure twelve and thirteen meters respectively. The horizontal beams are two IPE 500 where the boxes rest, avoiding any interlocking. Consequently, the structure is visible in its entirety.

The ends of the beams join four vertical elements respectively, which become the legs of this quadruped anatomy. Legs are as wide as beams, managing a continuity that makes all the pieces be understood as a unique element.

Biokilab Laboratories
© José Manuel Cutillas
Biokilab Laboratories
© José Manuel Cutillas

Different lengths of the legs are required because of the elevation of the boxes over the slope, which remains unaltered. Each quadruped structure is painted in deep red.

THE STRUCTURE OF THE BOX

Concrete boxes rest on quadruped structures. As mentioned before, these structures avoid the alteration of nature. The box is thought as a second structure that replaces walls with beams and roofs with double slabs.

Biokilab Laboratories
© José Manuel Cutillas
Biokilab Laboratories
© José Manuel Cutillas

The vertical faces of the box are beams as high as the box. These wall-beams have only one hole, defined by the maximum dimensions that let the beams work properly.

The horizontal face of the box is a reinforced double slab. Outside, the concrete structure is visible on all faces of the box.

Inside, plasterboards cover the structure. The window frame, drawn as a single line, stays hidden between both sheets. Its disappearance enables a simultaneous lecture of upper and back sides of the box.

Biokilab Laboratories
© José Manuel Cutillas
Biokilab Laboratories
© José Manuel Cutillas

The gap between sheets, both in walls and slabs, contains all building systems, as plumbing, electricity, voice and data. This net of systems solves the flexibility needed by the laboratory for its continuous transformation.


Biokilab Laboratories
Site Plan
Biokilab Laboratories
Floor Plan


Biokilab Laboratories
Section
Biokilab Laboratories
Section
Biokilab Laboratories
Section
Biokilab Laboratories
Section

Taller Básico de Arquitectura
T +34 948 236351 M +34 689 418752
Taller Básico de Arquitectura
C. Mutilva Baja, 17, 31006 Pamplona, Navarra, Spain