Prof’s design of Barcelona office building wins design competition

A new office building in Barcelona, Spain co-designed by Miguel Roldán, an adjunct professor of architecture at Texas A&M, has been has been recognized as the top design in the office/administration building category of a global architecture and interior design competition.

The 10,180-square-foot, award-winning building, the Catalonian Institute of Economists, was designed by Roldán, co-founding principal of Roldán + Berengué architects, and his design partner Mercé Berengué.

The building design was recognized in the AIT Awards, a contest sponsored by Architecture, Interiors and Technical Solutions magazine.

At first glance, the building appears to consist of two floors, but it actually contains six floors and two underground levels. The building also includes an auditorium, multipurpose room, spaces for professional training courses and offices.

Images of the award-winning projects were displayed during the Light + Building Trade Fair in Frankfurt, Germany from March 30 to April 4, and will be published in a future edition of AIT magazine.

Roldán also heads the Barcelona Architecture Center, where design students from Texas A&M and around the globe travel to study.

He spent the spring 2013 semester in College Station, leading a graduate architecture [studio] (http://one.arch.tamu.edu/news/2013/2/28/roldan-studio/) in which students created design proposals to accommodate future growth at Texas A&M incorporating approaches used by urban planners, landscape architects and construction managers.

Roldán, who founded [R+B Architects] (http://www.roldanberengue.com/) with Mercé Berengué in 1988, says he is interested in the moment when ideas move themselves into the territory of promises, in discovering the promises in a problematic site, in a confusing program, a low budget, an incomplete product or an uneven slope.

“A good problem,” he has said, “is a good resource.”

An exhibit of interior designs by Roldán and his R+B partner Mercé Berengué was recently [exhibited] (http://one.arch.tamu.edu/news/2012/2/14/roldan-work-magazine/) at the Catalunya College of Architects headquarters in Barcelona.