Building Ignacio Maria Barriola

This is the social services building for the University of the Basque Country. It's situated in the centre of the campus and functions as a multi-purpose building, with offices, a central lecture room, auditorium, classes, cafeteria, canteen and exposition space. The organisational clarity of the building goes beyond its external image, and is presented with powerful volumes. The building is a semi-public space, with the lobbies dominating as university meeting spaces, a three-storey agora, hierarchically structured. The building is open to the south, where the campus has a central green area, and closed to the north, facing the street. Inside classes are organised along the street façade, to keep a broad and spacious area towards the south, where the corridor and stairs form an open informal meeting area. The corridor opens up to the outside balcony. The building is constructed with post-tensioned floor slabs which reach a transverse span of 11,5m with a thickness of 30 cm.