City of Justice in Badalona
Badalona (Barcelona), Spain
We put all our efforts into carefully complying with the functional program and, at the same time, into generating public space and offering the friendly image we believe an urban complex must have.
Fully developing the complexity of the program resulted in a huge volume, so we fragmented the building’s mass – not only in plan but in section –, which allows us to function as a hinge between the large scale of the shopping mall and highway and the smaller scale of the dwellings and streets in the surrounding areas and, at the same time, create a square protected by the building itself that marks out the main entrance, contributing to giving the institutional image we think the building must have.
A second entrance, for the Civil Registry, faces the adjoining square in the shopping mall, which gives it a more domestic character with a public space right across where events such as weddings can be held.
The density of the program and its uniformity make it difficult to experiment with the architectural spaces, so we chose to place the public circulation routes right by the facades to ensure that they are in contact with the exterior and enjoy natural light. We wanted to offer citizens waiting in the building the best views.
Project data
Area
16.400 m2
Year
2011
Status
Competition
Client
Public – Generalitat de Catalunya (GISA)
Team
Main Architect: Carme Pinós, EXEDRA Arquitectura
Architects: Samuel Arriola Clemenz, José Carlos Castro