Hispano Olivetti Training Centre, Barcelona

The building - never constructed - was meant to house the offices of the Olivetti company; it was designed to be built along the Ronda de la Universitat next to the company headquarters already constructed by the BBPR group in the early sixties. The morphological plan of the building was in conformity with the grid of the development plan of Barcelona designed by Idelfonso Cerdà; it later evolved into a building with ten floors above ground and three basement floors.

The project had a unique feature: two windowless side blocks with free plan offices (thus, with only artificial lighting), and a glass centre block which - cutting through the entire vertical elevation - provided natural light to the lobby and the mechanised vertical distribution systems of the complex. The five flues positioned between the elevator shafts jut out from the copper roofing and become the characteristic element of the complex in the urban skyline. All the floors were connected by a projecting circular plan staircase-block (made entirely of glass) located at the opposite end of the glass façade building.

The transformability provided by the reinforced concrete load-bearing structure made it possible to alter the layout and size of the offices depending on requirements; in turn this affected the possible combinations of the offices theorised by the architect for the façades.

The cafeteria, garage and technical systems (hidden behind a counterwall) were to be located in the basement floors.