Photographs: Eduardo Sánchez

A newly-created industrial zone in a peripheral area with no identity, references or language; major road links which cross, divide and model the contemporary landscape; a narrow, long plot between partition walls. Only the distant views on this landscape offer any interesting prospect of a relationship with the outside. The building hosts the headquarters of the city’s road-cleaning services. The uses are divided out over three areas, clearly distinguishable in both their layout and their section. Thus, a gradually descending shape starts with the most public of the offices next to the entrance while placing the most private, such as the switchyard, at the rear closed off by a wall. The surroundings and the varied nature of the programme encourage a unified design, integrating the building’s public character within an industrial system of construction. An opaque and emphatic volume takes up the whole site and confirms its presence in view of the diverse structure of the surrounding area. Only the plate glass in the offices opens up into the large space taken from the entrance in order to establish a link with the distant landscape. Two light and gravel courtyards that are not visible from the outside set the layouts from the entrance and separate the block of offices from the industrial container, guaranteeing that the two landscape/office storeys are bathed in natural light and are ventilated throughout the working day.