Aragon House Business Centre

Located in an area of intense daytime and nightlife activity, and with a rather restricted site, Aragon House boldly departs from the nearby grid buildings and its elliptical shape makes a distinctive statement to its surroundings, creating a unique landmark. It represents a volumetric study incorporating a large degree of transparency at street level, while the elegant curved glass facade reflects its immediate surroundings, seemingly to disappear. This centre has been purposely designed to cater for maximum flexibility.

Constructed primarily in steel and precast composite elements, it consists of nine floors of offices, permitting different layouts for multiusers, and provides also for five floors of below ground parking. The total floorspace above ground is around 10,000 square metres with basement parking facilities catering for nearly 350 car spaces. The site has a gross area of circa 2,000 square metres. The lower floors are traversed by a covered internal street which is a main access to a large touristic and residential complex, and this has been used to create a discreet entrance to the building, away from the hustle and bustle of city traffic, into a relaxed reception area.

The principal specification for this development called for a passive design based on local climatic considerations, controlling comfort by minimizing fossil fuel consumption and the need for electricity but maximizing natural lighting and cross ventilation. This was primarly achieved through the use of technical innovation and high quality materials. In particular the external envelope was realized by the use of low emissivity selective glazing incorporating the latest aluminium facade systems with low thermal transmittance and high sound insulation. Building services controlled by a state of the art building management system reduce the carbon foot-print of the project using solar energy, natural lighting and ventilation.