Zaha Hadid Architects' Edifici Torre Espiral

Although 22@Barcelona’s growth has been recent (over 1,500 firms have established themselves in the district since 2000, and its residential population has grown by 23%), the region is marked by various divisions. Businesses occupy the area in five knowledge-based clusters: Media, Energy, Design, Biomedical, and Information and Computer Technology (ICT). Commercial activities overlap with academic and government ones as part of the “triple helix” innovation system implemented by the district. Adjacent to this neighborhood, too, is Barcelona’s border with the municipality of Sant Adrià del Besòs.

In response, the Edifici Torre Espiral is adamantly multidirectional. In concept as well as in name, the building is a spiral. Video renderings by the architect represent it as a thread: shooting in from outside the frame, the thread winds itself loosely into the semblance of a structure. The diagram’s slackened skein becomes, in its built form, offset stacks of cantilevered balconies. Diagrammatic void spaces resolve architecturally into ribbon windows.

The Edifici Torre Espiral has two clients, business consortium Zona Franca de Barcelona and b_TEC/Inter-University Consortium Campus Besòs. Its program is reflective of the interdisciplinary nature of 22@Barcelona, and includes office, university, auditorium, and retail space. As they have done with other projects, the architects use landscaping to moderate the site’s topography and draw the region together into a more coherent whole. The building’s upswept lines lift it above street level, freeing up ground space for civic use. Courtyards and an atrium are designed to promote interaction among the district’s user groups.

The building is currently under construction.