Offices, Refurbishment
2014
BALMES 49 OFFICE BUILDING
INGESA, Ingenieria de encofrados y Servicios S.L.
Situation: Barcelona
Status: Completed

Data
Situation: 49 Balmes st
Floor Area: 3.885sqm2
Budget: 4.750.000€
Architect: Eduard Gascón and Jordi Roig
Associate Architect: Lupe Álvarez
Quantity Surveyor: Vicenç Galiana
Team: Elies Rull, Gilberto Pérez, Josep Castillo
Structure Engineer: BIS Arquitectes
Facilities Engineer: PGI grup Ingenieria
Facades: Xavier Ferrés, architect
Photos: José Hevia

Description
This project deals with the integral renovation of an existing building, work of the architects J.M.ª Fargas and E.Tous in 1967, in order to adapt it to the requirements of current office buildings. The operation involves, therefore, the replacement of the existing facades with new enclosures that interpret, in current terms, the markedly vertical compositional lines of this area of the Ensanche.
The new façade expresses itself through glass as the main material, a smooth and subtle plane, with a marked technological sense, arranged according to vertical strips that show the thickness and complexity of the enclosure. The gaps defined by the glazed tribunes stand out among the background of a wall built from a latticework of ceramic tubes. In its contact with the public road, the building recovers the double height characteristic of the neighboring buildings.