Cuatrecasas, Gonçalvez Pereira Lawyers Headquarters

A comprehensive renovation of an obsolete 1980s office block, respecting the original space but improving its energy efficiency, reducing maintenance costs and updating its urban image with a bold, high-quality, and transformative project. The building will house the Madrid headquarters of the law firm Cuatrecasas.

The strategy for the project involved the transformation of the dark and enclosed interior space into one built on light and perspective. In order to do this three key actions were undertaken:

1_Substituting the skin of the building for a contemporary façade in keeping with the urban environment.
2_Reorganizing the circulation
3_Reclaiming the interior patio as a relational space

The new design preserves and integrates itself into the urban setting through a smooth dialogue between the space and the design. The new façade is composed of light, graphite-coloured, aluminium boxes which have a modulated stainless steel skin that protects from solar radiation. The rhythm of the façade and the differentiating treatment of the base and the top floor carefully resolve the relationship with neighbouring buildings and construct an emblematic corner on one of the most characteristic streets in Madrid, thereby endowing it with urban and architectural value

The eight-floor building had to house about 400 lawyers who work for the firm, the public spaces dedicated to clients on the ground and first floors, and the executive zone and presidency on the penthouse floor.

With the aim of reclaiming the central U-shaped space of the building and emphasising it, all the secondary circulation and ancillary spaces were brought to the extremes of the U, the principal elevators and staircase concentrated in this new space, and a new cylindrical internal patio opened up. This intervention in the nerve centre of the building successfully improves the natural lighting on all floors as well as the principle entrance hall which is flooded with overhead light thanks to the skylight which tops off this internal patio and the connection to the street. The creation of this patio generates a relationship of transparency between the different floors, connecting them visually. In this way, light itself becomes the material which differentiates the workspaces, which have been treated neutrally and uniformly, complementing the internal work dynamics. The public spaces, dedicated to clients, open onto the street and are rendered in warm materials, thereby achieving a comfortable yet austere atmosphere.

Lastly, the reclamation of the interior patio succeeds in connecting the exterior urban space with the private interior and favours the entrance of natural light to the work spaces, generating a continuous transparence from the exterior to the interior façade. The result is a subtle play of light and perspective that creates a serious yet warm working environment.

PREMIO COAM 2013 (Colegio Oficial de Arquitectos de Madrid)
PREMIO VETECO ASEFAVE 2014 (Asociación Española de fabricantes de fachadas ligeras y ventanas)