Agència Estatal de Metereologia (AEMET)

District: Sant Martí

Neighborhood: la Vila Olímpica del Poblenou

Transports
C. de l'Arquitecte Sert, 1 (08071)
How to get there

Torroja Ingeniería was originally going to be located in front of the Mapfre tower and with the same dimensions as its floor plan, within a square measuring 33 m on each side. The final location is 300 m further north-east, at a meeting point between two projects with different scales, layouts and languages: the Olympic Port and the Nova Icària Promenade.
The work distances itself from Barcelona's residential Vila Olímpica neighbourhood and evokes its relationship with coastal artefacts: breakwaters and cargo ships, silos and water tanks, cranes, lighthouses and chimney stacks.
 

The volume, hollowed out at the core by a full-height patio that is 9 m in diameter, is topped off like a cylinder with 8 deep radial slits that create vaults into which the rooms open. The bottoms of these patios are tangential to the internal circulation ring. From this ring, looking outward, we can see 8 completely different images, like in a kaleidoscope or a compass. 
The internal circulation ring is made up of 2 concentric but rotated octagons that compress and expand the space, forming small squares in front of the bottom of the patios where you can access all the rooms, both those that face inward and outward.
From the outside the building appears as an enlightened volume supported by an elementary geometry, yet it transforms inside into a complex game of escapes, tangents, contortions and recesses, paradoxically supported by the same rules.
The concrete plinth emerges from the foundations through the sand, like a ruin that has been partially excavated. A circular marble curtain is slid over this plinth extruded from the projected topography. The same stone is used inside for paving and cladding in entrances, stairs and terraces. The other floors are made of linoleum. The walls and ceilings are made of plaster painted white, which is unified with the enamel of the woodwork.
 

Activities carried out there