Doctors Without Borders Corporate Headquarters, Barcelona

The proposal for the new Corporate Headquarters for Doctors Without Borders transforms an existing building with very unhealthy conditions into a new functional and bright space designed for people. A new tiered green patio is set up adding a central staircase that strengthens the connection between floors and generates a system of exterior terraces offering new meeting and working spaces. We conceived a high end versatile building, understanding and observing the repercussions of the different actions and the election of materials, prioritizing a sustainable, environmentally respectful, and biophillic design. The building is arranged in public ground floor, flexible workspace floors and a rooftop with new meeting spaces. The ground floor generates a new entrance improving the transparency and connection with the public space adding and adjacent space for bicycle parking. The workspace floors are organized around the new patio, generating a large open central space related to the central patio and two lateral stripes hosting communication cores, hygiene chambers and closed meeting rooms and offices. Finally, the rooftop generates exterior meeting and resting spaces, adding features such as the photovoltaic panel pergola and mobile canopies improving the space's comfort attributes. Understanding the climate emergency situation we live in, we work with sustainability, expressing the strategies followed when tackling the project's design. — URBAN RECYCLING: tearing down the existing building and building it again would have much higher CO2 emissions Renovating the building has had less than half of this emissions. — BIODIVERSITY: Designing a biophillic building where facades, roof, patio, and interiors are green and improve people's health, air quality and biodiversity of our cities. — WATER: Strategies to collect and reuse rainwater used within the building, fostering circular economy. Water collected by the photovoltaic pergola is stored in tanks on the rooftop to irrigate vegetation. — SUSTAINABLE MOBILITY: buildings must add to the city's new sustainable mobility network offering quality and handy bicycle parking space. The bicycle parking is thus placed on the main entrance. Healthy interior routes are also encouraged adding a new staircase into the central patio. — MITIGATING THE HEAT ISLAND: adding elements that help mitigate the heat island such as shadow effect, adding the rooftop canopies, or refreshing surfaces with the addition of lush vegetation. — CRADLE TO CRADLE: promoting the use of proximity, recyclable, and low CO2 consumption materials, such as the abundant use of certified wood in interior spaces. — nZEB / CARBON NEUTRAL: buildings have to accomplish minimum energy demands through passive strategies. Roof and facade insulation is increased, and joinery is renovated improving the building's thermal envelope's efficiency. — SELF-SUFFICIENCY AND PRODUCTIVITY: Energy self-sufficiency producing as much energy as possible within the building in itself through renewable sources. The building is linked to the districlima network and electricity is produced by the photovoltaic pergola. — HEALTH AND WELL-BEING: buildings have to reach spatial, physical, and material comfort fostering the user's health. Adding the interior central green patio improves natural light of workspaces, crossed ventilation and the relation with nature. RENOVATION is an opportunity to transform obsolete and inefficient buildings and provide them with a new life, optimizing resources and building with lower environmental impact.