AGi architects have completed the exterior refurbishment of an office building, consisting of the renovation of its façade and the regeneration of the outer communal areas. The offices are located in northern Madrid City, in a consolidated urban tissue with predominance of residential buildings.
    
The two-storey building faces a square that allows the transition from private space to the street, creating an optimal relationship between visitors, tenants and residents.

The intervention is based on two simple actions. On one hand, the creation of a passive climate-control façade; on the other, the transformation of a private plaza for community use. The work was carried out on a south-facing façade composed of mirrored glass lacking solar control. These factors entailed high energy consumption within the building and a disparity in users’ enclosures that decontextualized the property’s image. In order to reduce the impact of such solar radiation, improve indoor comfort temperature and reduce incurred energy spending, AGi architects opted for placing a textile façade cladding. This new building solution modernizes the offices’ image through the volumetric unity achieved, and regenerates the façade of a previously decontextualized and degraded building.

In order to increase the value of the exterior square, an intervention on its perimeter was proposed creating a tectonic but visually permeable boundary between the public street and the communal plaza. This limit is defined constructively by shrubs and aromatic vegetation planted in precast concrete pots, combined with a translucent fence of folded vertical sheets in order to define and guide the access to the square, outlining the plot limit and integrating signage in a simple and practical way.

The intervention, in all, improves the functionality, safety and habitability of the property, opting for a smart use of architectural elements to allow a rational use of energy and other resources in the building.