New JRC Headquarters in La Cartuja

The new JRC headquarters in Seville will be located in the urban setting of the Cartuja Island, laid out for Expo92 and currently defined by its planned use: a Technology and Research Park combining culture, education, leisure and commerce with offices and research centres. In contrast to the narrow streets of the adjacent historic city, the nature of the island's public space is open and vast: large boulevards, wide open spaces and large parks. While Seville's small streets offer protection from the sun, the open space is fully exposed to the hot climate. The challenge of the project lies in working with this urban condition and how to integrate a new sustainable premise into this dispersed neighbourhood that wants to be urban and vibrant.

This condition has triggered our project. At its heart lies a new urban and architectural element: a three-dimensional landscape in which an elevated building occupies the northern part, thus providing a protected public space defined by a regular grid of forest-like columns.