LA SALUT CIVIC CENTRE: BADALONA
This commission, drawn up by the Town Council of Badalona, consisted of adapting the first floor of the market building, in the La Salut District, and converting it into municipal offices, separated from the ground floor, which would continue to operate as the local market.
The main challenge that the project faced was to intervene in the interior of the existing building, the work of the Catalan architect Josep María Sostres, without touching the reinforced concrete structure, and to adapt the first floor, in line with present day regulations, paying particular attention to the need for the centre to be adapted to those regulations in terms of accessibility and fire fighting safety.
To begin with, this requirement involved the establishment of newly adapted accesses and emergency exits, for the first floor, with the problem of the emergency exit stairways being solved by locating them as two excepted elements, which do not intervene in the original elevation, and allow for the building’s full, original expressivity to be preserved.
With regard to the interior, in view of the pronounced series of concrete structures, a minimal intervention was proposed, through the introduction of two enclosure systems, one of which was based on U-Glass with brightly coloured phenolic resins facings, allowing for the image of the spaces to be modified without interfering with their structure. The spaces alongside the light wells were also enclosed with curved U-Glass walls, allowing light from the light wells to illuminate the interior corridors. At the same time, the spaces near the façades have been separated off by partition wall furnishings, made up of phenolic resin panels finished in bright colours. As the partitions are not full height they also allow light to pass over the top.
The redesign of the access ramp consisted of lining it with aluminium sheeting and adding a railing of rectangular galvanised steel sections, which serve to frame this forceful and highly visible entrance to the district’s new municipal offices.
