Entegra offices in Barcelona

Entegra is a nZEB office building developed for Urban Input, a Spanish promoter delivering high-quality and socially conscious projects. The building, situated in Barcelona’s 22@ technological district. One of the main requirements from the outset was to achieve maximum energy efficiency. From the early stages, measures were therefore implemented to establish passive strategies that reduce the project’s energy demand and promote the well-being and comfort of users. As part of the team’s strong commitment to innovation, the building is given a charred timber façade using the yakisugi method. This technique consists in burning the outer layer, ensuring protection from damp, solar radiation, and insects. This, combined with the marine plywood soffit, considerably reduces the building’s carbon footprint, and resolves the façade using a long-lasting natural system that is very low maintenance. The façade plays with the projections of the floor slabs that provide protection from solar radiation, thereby reducing energy demand. Also, the study of the optimum percentage of glazing and solid in each façade achieves a balance between the use of natural lighting and control of solar radiation. An intelligent natural ventilation system uses sensors to capture the ideal moment of temperature and noise, opening windows in the façade to take advantage of cross-ventilation and stopping mechanical air-conditioning. All the elements in the roof are white to prevent their materials from absorbing and storing thermal energy. The project is designed to promote the well-being of users from the moment they start their journey to work. To achieve this, the building incorporates a private bicycle parking area equipped with changing rooms. The building has a useful surface area of 4,736 m2 and is integrated into its urban surroundings. A permeable ground floor featuring a large entrance porch encourages the connection of passages running through the street block. This creates a welcoming, dynamic, human-scale entrance. The building also features eight floors of offices, designed with a structural core against the party wall. This arrangement creates open plan, flexible workspaces of over 350 m² that open to the city through the façade and are adaptable to any kind of company. For the office floors, a mixed ceiling system was chosen, with noise-producing mechanisms encased in accessible perimeter strips, leaving free the entire central space where the terminal, duct and lighting elements are located. This decision to use floor slabs with visible installations that increase headroom promotes user comfort due to improved air quality and better natural lighting, generating workspaces that maximize productivity, efficiency, and well-being. All the floors in the building have terraces, guaranteeing contact with vegetation to promote biophilia and intensify the connection between the offices and the outdoor spaces. Thanks to the incorporation of passive strategies, careful selection of materials and systems, and optimized installations, the building achieves an energy consumption of only 23.9 kWh/m² per year, qualifying it as a nZEB. Additionally, it has earned the prestigious LEED Gold certification for sustainability.