Cointec Office

The space sits below road level, facing a park in Orihuela. It arrived raw: a concrete shell with a steel mezzanine structure already in place, located within a flood zone. Both conditions, the depressed entry and the water risk, were not obstacles to work around. They became the first design decisions.

Concrete, continuous, across every room.

An elevated platform at the entrance resolves the flood exposure and establishes a raised datum from which the rest of the plan is organized. This threshold is marked by a stone bench, the only material element in the project that contrasts with the floor. Everything else is consistent: concrete throughout, unjointed, running from the entrance platform across every zone of the office.

The floor is the project’s primary organizational element. Its continuity produces the sense of spatial unity that the open plan requires; the single material change at the entry threshold marks the transition from street to workspace with economy and precision.

Organisation without walls.

The layout organizes the 260 square metres as a single continuous space. Compartmentalization comes not from fixed walls but from the precise positioning of furniture and glass partitions, satin stainless steel frames that divide zones while maintaining visual connection across the whole.

The staircase and washrooms are consolidated at the rear of the plan, releasing the entire front area as uninterrupted working floor with direct views onto the park. A central storage band running the length of the space resolves the ventilation and technical runs within its depth, keeping the ceiling free.

Austerity as position.

The project was completed in 2016, at the tail end of a period when the constraints on architectural practice in Spain were severe. The Cointec offices work from those constraints directly: a raw space, a limited budget, a programme that demands clarity above all else.

The expressiveness of the space comes from proportion, material and light, not from addition or decoration. The park view, framed by the low position of the windows, is the dominant spatial experience. The architecture does not compete with it.