LOCAL IDENTITY THROUGH INNOVATION

 

The building La Rotonda, famous for its modernist style, in Barcelona gathers the offices of Accenture and the Barcelona Innovation Center.

 

A rotonda is a typology of temple, building or room of circular form covered by a dome or roof also circular. Acting as an iconic space for meeting, it is an element that supports as plurality, temporality and centrality. As the Barcelona Innovation Center has recently acquire a new floor, the Space Design team of Accenture Song Madrid developed a project to remodel different points of the building.

 

The main idea was to integrate local identity through innovation, also by bringing the richness of the façade to the inside of the building. Collaborating with other disciplines was an essential aspect of the project and in each of the interventions, the element rotonda is actualized and reinterpreted as a space for encounter and holder of different narratives introducing natural elements to the experience in a physical – digital experience. The different spots for intervention are “The Mezzanine” on the first floor, “The Diamond” on the third and two welcome points on the third and fourth floor. In all of them, a reference to la Rotonda is made to its circular form and to its capability of supporting narratives and ornamental elements based in natural forms and geometry.

 

In the Mezzanine, the design is based in an immersive experience consequence of a semicircular screen placed in the roof which is completed into a full circle by a mirror. This 7-meter length screen projects a digital artwork piece created by Entangled Others Studio, founded by Sofia Crespo and Feileacan McCormick. Working with artificial intelligence and referencing the ornamental natural world that supports La Rotonda, they have created an interactive artwork that responds to the life of the building and its surroundings by adapting itself to the occupation of the building and the pollution in the environment.

 

But not only digital references to vegetation are made, also the project counts with the integration of real plants that will increase the quality of the experience. Some of these plants will grow in three 3d printed pots designed and manufactured by “La Máquina”, part of Noumena, that is a team of young engineers, researchers, and robotics experts based in Barcelona. Other two 3d printed pots will be placed in the Welcome Points in floors 3 and 4. This Welcome Points also reference La Rotonda, as a quarter circle of stretched ceiling is reflected and completed by mirrors in the walls.

 

The last intervention designed by the Space Design team in Accenture Song Madrid is the Diamond Room and sadly it will not be constructed for the moment. Located just beneath the rotonda it gathers a circular space where the protagonist is a vegetation crown piece. Again, referencing the modernist natural world, this time by a physical reinterpretation. A circular stretched ceiling covers the roof completing the atmosphere and 3 rotating monitors make the use of the room more flexible.