Collaborators
Eugenio Abdilla
Photography
Gemma Aparicio
The project is configured in "C" shape around a central patio open to the East, with the two parallel sides are longer and higher, and the transverse body in the West, which forms the entrance to the building from the Campus of the Polytechnic University of Valencia. Between the two longitudinal wings it’s also situated the building that crosses over the inner courtyard and allow its interconnection.
The structure is solved by means of steel frames for the office module, and of trusses for the classroom modules, also employing a prefabricated system of hollow-core slabs. The bridge body takes advantage of the triangulation in both façades to cover lights of almost 20m, with double height spaces and tangential staircases.
In the North body, five flying boxes emerge from the façade, arranged according to requirements of additional space depending on each plant. The structural requirements induced by the flying boxes are increased by the presence of longitudinal ramp ladders, which separate the outer band from the double span to the interior of the yard. In this way, a structural system of three-dimensional behaviour leads the forces from the start of the flying boxes, through the crosses under the hollow-core slabs, through the ramp stairs, to the reinforced concrete walls, linked to the façade of the courtyard.
In order to reduce the weight of the flying boxes, they are solved by means mixed concrete and steel slabs on metal joist that are supported, at the same time, on trusses of the whole height of the box, to allow flights of more than 7m.
