World Building of the Year

Multimedia museum, laboratory spaces, offices and a conference room: a platform for exchanges between young growing companies won the "World Building of the Year"

The "Medium ICT-building" in Barcelona, ​​designed by Enric Ruiz Geli-Study Cloud 9, has been awarded the title of "World Building of the Year" in the World Architecture Festival 2011. It houses a multimedia museum, laboratory space, a conference room and offices, all to provide a platform for exchanges between young people growing international companies. With 15% of the functional program dedicated to common areas, the interior was built to be as neutral as possible, without giving priority to the characteristics of private, public or business.

The volume forms a building 44m x 44m x cube of 37.82m in height, the site is of 3,572.45 m2 in the basement of the building which occupies the whole area, while the building above ground occupies 54.20%. In total 16,000 m2 of which two floors below the ground (7100 m2) with a capacity of 200 cars. The building is divided so that the upper floors (from eighth to fourth) are leased to large companies, the second and third have small spaces for emerging companies, and the first floor and an auditorium with Cibernariun it offers an "Open program "to all the" residents of the city. " The ground floor has no pillars, invades the public space 40m x 36m with the building of free space. The lobby of the building can accommodate exhibitions, workshops, events.

The building is built from top to bottom and moves, becoming transparent, following an anti-gravitational flow, becoming almost "liquid" at the base. Thus, its impact is minimal on the road, about 8% of the mass comes to the ground than the area of ​​1500 m2 covering. Unlike most buildings that consume huge amounts of energy, medium-ICT is designed to be a power generator as well as optimizing energy consumption.

Thanks to the building energy simulation corresponds to the needs of heat and cold to minimize the size of the plants. The façade, made of inflatable ETFE cushions on the south side, acts as a sunscreen "variable", opens in winter, solar gain, and closes to protect and shade in summer.

Both sides and the offices were equipped with multiple temperature sensors, which collect and provide information on moisture and pressure. Such information allows to adjust the internal conditions of Media-ICT producing 10-20% reduction of CO2, plus another 2-10% CO2 reduction thanks to photovoltaic roof. A 3-55% reduction in CO2 due to movement of sunscreens ETFE. And a reduction of 4-10% CO2 for energy efficiency on intelligent sensors. In total a reduction of 95% CO2. Mid-ICT is a building from almost zero energy balance.