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june 2 0 1 2 home smart office awen architects ofita redesigns its madrid offices new centum offices product test iroha more notes 12 apuntes/notes magazineandontrendsnews

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conclusions of the workshop ab 2011 home smart office working from home is growing dramatically and all the forecasts point towards this becoming a true revolution because of its positive environmental economic and family impact as well as all the new possibilities offered by information and communication technologies but this should be also accompanied by a deep rethinking of the type of work as well as the conditions of family life especially with regards to the relationship with children working activities will occupy an increasingly large place in the home and this requires a profound rethinking of its configuration but there is another determining factor the relentless progress of digital entertainment based on information and communication technologies icts the constant need for training by means of interactive learning systems with the generalisation of multimedia entertainment and the prominence of activities relating to social networks are relentlessly dragging us towards a new concept of the home digital which is structured around the computer telecommunications and audiovisual systems the same type of equipment used for office work for performing a very similar kind of tasks in this context a few months ago ofilab ofita s trends laboratory held the home smart office workshop to develop new concepts for space furniture and equipment for the home workplace together with young designers the aim to lead to a reflection on the social impact of the new ways of working ofita apuntes/notes 2

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ofita apuntes/notes 3

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we proposed this topic not only because teleworking is a new way of understanding the working/company relationship but also because it is one of the trends that will cause the greatest revolution in office design teleworking in general and home-based work in particular are affecting the way of understanding and designing offices due to the proliferation of new concepts such as the nonterritorial workstations that these involve thus in offices and largely as the result of teleworking collective spaces -group working areas and informal communication areas become more important and personally assigned workstations give way to a pool of workspaces according to the conclusions of ofita s workshop it does not therefore involve the creation of a specific workspace within the home in line with the philosophy and the logic of a traditional office rather everything points to the need to move towards multifunction concepts of spaces of a versatile nature which naturally integrate all the necessary technological elements and that can be quickly and easily transformed to adapt to one or another ofita apuntes/notes 4 activity and that contribute towards a greater humanisation of work family life and the upbringing of children their proposal for us is a more or less traditional family situation a couple with two children the couple works at home three days a week and two days outside it the children of 6 and 8 years of age fill their time between school and home except for the sleeping hours during the rest of the day they coexist in the same space where leisure and work encounter each other we understand that one of the benefits you can get from working from home when you have a family is to enjoy their company without losing the possibility of getting away from it all when necessary our project responds to this situation and its needs we start out grounding our efforts on the use of interactive surfaces as a media for work and leisure a mobile transparent glass wall that turns opaque when needed and on which projections can be made it is a vertical surface to be used for work or play on one or both sides at the same time this partition contains two tables that slide together or separately on both sides of the glass surface creating different combinations depending on the nature of the

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business activity to be carried out as is explained by the young designers who have participated in this project ofilab is a laboratory created by ofita to reflect on explore and disclose trends in the evolution of office space and furnishings it also has the purpose of promoting young designers giving them the opportunity to forge their way into the exciting world of office design the conclusions of this workshop are published on the blog http ofilab.ofita.com and on www.ofita.com design contest in the presentation of these conclusions mr camilo agromayor the managing director of ofita announced that the next ofilab event which will be published in september will be design contest as we shall thus provide access to a greater number of designers ofita apuntes/notes 5

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iñigo elorduy of awen architects somewhat more than architecture with a sustainability seal in 1992 iñigo elorduy chusa castander and juan pablo sarricolea created the awen architects studio since then different kind of projects have arisen in this architecture consultancy firm with a formidable imprint of sustainability that is inherent in all of them and the social commitment of an exceptional team that works between madness and reason to create magical places and provide an exclusive differentiating factor to its customers beyond designing a building they perform work with a much wider scope in this interview iñigo elorduy says i call these advanced designs and analyses iñigo elorduy and chusa castander ofita apuntes/notes 6

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arnedo arena bull-fighting arena the architecture must dialogue with the environment in order to participate and form a part of the landscape and it enthuses me even more of it also has a social component says iñigo elorduy under the unwavering gaze and the committed attitude of those who consider it a duty to participate with their architecture in social projects that involve the community talking to him about architecture is talking about building a sustainable future as an architect who is enthused by his work i have had the vocation of an architect since i was readily aware i was disappointed with today s urban planning and architecture which have all but disappeared in spain and he is driven to providing his customers with an exclusive product that no one else has i seek that way of delivering value to design something that is a differentiating factor people seem to think that anything that is exclusive costs twice as much but this is not the case for the same price you can do something different this ability to provide added value for its client in each of the projects assigned to it is one of the differentiating traits of awen architects the firm that iñigo manages another one is the seal of inherent sustainability in its projects which in 2010 led them to create termainox consulting a group of multidisciplinary companies relating to architecture engineering energy efficiency and renewable energies by means of the use of wood and other natural resources for example they have started up two projects for urban vegetable gardens that are cultivated for consumption by the local unemployed and we buy the excess i love social projects says iñigo elorduy beyond designing a building we perform work with a much wider scope he explains i call it advanced analysis and design iñigo elorduy chusa castander and juan pablo sarricolea created the awen architects studio in 1992 as a professional studio in addition an exceptional collaboration started that reaches our days with josé zugasti one of the best basque sculptors with many joint projects in 2000 large-scale projects arrived as did collaborations with companies and engineering firms the phd the study began to grow and we managed to get an exceptional team based on the awen system in which we are all involved the soul of awen is its team without which awen would be nothing everyone is a genius in their own way iñigo elorduy proudly asserted how could we define awen architects it is an architectural consultancy firm ­with a studio in madrid and bilbao­understood in the broadest sense we not only design architectural projects but also energy ore business ones based on sustainability and energy efficiency in fields such as landscaping culture sports tourism education health care or work we could say that where others see a building or an object at awen they see an opportunity to change the way of doing things ofita apuntes/notes 9

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landako swimming pools sports centre on the basis of its own style and with an architectural image developed throughout its business career it has gained experience in materials such as wood in energy efficiency in renewable energy sources prefabrication and the modulation of architectural elements the purification and reusing of water the use of water for health with the design of spas and therapeutic installation with water in lighting and its psychological effects in developing projects with recyclable materials and social projects of cultivation areas in 1987 they were already working with the idea of striking a relationship in the balance between nature and architecture it was at that time that when he started to intuit the concept of landscaping that we have heard so much about in recent years my commitment to the environment led me to incorporate the concept of nature into the architecture in the early 90s with which we started to work on sustainability and landscaping projects unfortunately in spain landscaping is a chimera this type of client does not exist nor is there any sensitivity in the city councils and regional governments at awen we have made eco-routes interpreting centres garden parks nature reserves and tourist centres he says his passion for wood as a building material arose from a trip he took to austria and germany in 2002 we discovered passive houses natural ventilation and began working with a sustainability concept after another trip to germany in 2006 they began to work on the recycling of water using natural plant systems and ofita apuntes/notes 8 natural pools in the past few years they have incorporated the use of plants into their projects for recycling water and ecological or natural swimming pools as well as biomass at two pioneering installations in the basque country a joint building combining a hotel and offices at the old seminary in derio and agricultural facility for the garitano brothers in laukariz the were also tourism projects in the balearic islands where we incorporated sustainable mobility with electric mobility and natural ventilation systems using sea breeze systems to replace air conditioning with these systems we are achieving energy savings of up to 40 in the electricity bill says iñigo in a project in cadiz they have proposed the reusing of a few tide mills which have been fitted with hydroelectric generators and in tarragona they have designed a cemetery in a forest of carob trees where solar trees have been introduced that produce free energy for the town we work looking out for the leitmotif of the place in order to bring us closer to a higher level of sustainability with the environment the landscape between madness and reason awen started to be forged in the mid-80s at the higher technical school of architecture of madrid minimalism and deconstructivism were their working tools and the aim was to forge their own style since then they have defended the awen style.

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landako swimming pools ofita apuntes/notes 5

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visitors reception centre segovia they work on conceptual abstract ideas not by project types because -as he says when you work with an abstract conceptual idea and get a composition based on it the scale factor only affects you with regards to the building system so it is the same to build a large building or a jewel awen moves between madness and reason and bases its working philosophy on the madness of reason his first series of works appear with this name our projects have those points of madness that help to break down barriers and create magical spaces madness that often translates into details that create a very special space for those who live in it in 2009 ofita s showroom in madrid hosted the exhibition the madness of reason a journey through the history of awen which involves a reflection and a separate point according to iñigo elorduy after it we began a new stage to adapt ourselves to the new times since then we have been developing the product architectural commercial and design projects r&d&i projects which are marketed through the internet from www.bionovapiscinasnaturales.com we create any natural swimming pool design the landscaping the architecture and the recycling of water using sustainable systems from www.puertasdeparcela.com we create the enclosures and gates to plots of land using heat-treated wood and with solar motors and soon at www.awenarquitectos.com we will launch the first passive modular home design of 120 m2 starting at 180.000 euros which we can put together in 5 months ofita apuntes/notes 10

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what projects are you immersed in at the moment in addition to continuing to develop abstract concepts we have two research projects and an r&d&i one the first joins music up with architecture we are using musical structures to generate new architectural typologies and layouts we have started a project in which the customers gave us four jazz songs in order to design the architecture the second is dark matter and energy in collaboration with francisco castander of the autonomous university of barcelona we are studying how these elements work in the universe and we try to apply this to other environments and on other scales on the other hand along with ofita and tecnalia we are developing an r&d&i project on energy efficiency for buildings based phase change systems are you specialised in any kind of building we very much resist any specialisation that we identify with typecasting we are attracted by all kinds of challenges when the arnedo arena project arose we had never designed a bullfighting arena since then we have received orders for several things relating to this field is this a specialisation museums are probably our favourite projects we have designed many and what we like the most is that you must tell a story sports centres and swimming pools are another of our most usual projects wood is one of our recurring materials in which we have experience wood as a sustainable material that absorbs co2 we can and we are designing all kinds of buildings made of wood i ask once again is this a specialisation among your office projects we are especially interested in the office of tourism of segovia as it involved a conceptual change as is also understood by iñigo elorduy it is no longer a place where building plans are spread out but it suggests a place to receive tourists and help them plan their stay routes restaurants hotels rural tourism internet connection accessibility this involved a change in the way of using and designing the building the conceptual design idea is that of an embrace the entire office was designed thinking about that embrace which must be as warm as possible materials colours distribution organisation and with an embrace we say goodbye to iñigo elorduy but not without first asking him what building he would have liked to design -any one by peter eisenman he admits and on his dreams i dream of seeing a new town-planning mentality appear in the country based more on landscaped structures than on the volume that can be built that strives to keep the essence of the place rather than building the same hotel or the same town house in the canary islands in seville and in asturias to be able to wake up from the nightmare of the sea front promenade with a concrete balustrade and the asphalt car parks of supermarkets ofita apuntes/notes 11

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o f i ta redesignsitsmadridoffices ofita apuntes/notes 12

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teamwork spaces ofita apuntes/notes 13

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ofita has redesigned its madrid offices which are located in caleruega street in response to its present working dynamics including the mode of co-working the new distribution and design clearly reflected the current new trends in the office space which are mainly shared spaces areas for teamwork multi-function work stations and even non-territorial areas and spaces for informal communication essentially it is a new space that encourages the collaboration and creativity of people the hierarchical organisation is diffused with no offices and the new premises of transparency effectiveness flexibility and permanent change that translate into an office without barriers designed for communication and implementation in common ofita apuntes/notes 14

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space for co-working moreover in these facilities space has been created for co-working for the self-employed freelancers entrepreneurs architects and professionals from all business sectors who do not have an office or need more space to work or to hold meetings this co-working space provides work stations and meeting rooms that rented by the hour from one hour the half-day the whole day the week or the month depending on the needs of each client ofita co-working is a great place to work individually or in a network to generate synergies to share knowledge to practice networking and why not make contacts in a flexible environment according to the needs of each professional and being inspiring by means of designer furniture and all the necessary technological services and features in addition to informal meeting areas office with all the equipment and connections required to start working immediately in a comfortable ergonomic and most modern environment fresh the protagonist of the showroom on the other hand the showroom located on the top floor with new work stations and proposals for your office has been renewed the new fresh furniture system designed by antoni arola and jordi tamayo stars in this space with different configurations from individual offices to work stations for teams ofita apuntes/notes 15

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