ARCHITECT

RUIZ PARDO - NEBREDA

PROJECT

PUMA ENERGY EL SALVADOR HEADQUARTERS 2015

The Corporate Headquarters is located on the Pan-American Highway as it passes through San Salvador. Facing the commercial and industrial constructions that characterize this stretch of the highway with hardly any public projection, the new building is inserted between them and overlooks them with a powerful cantilever, showing its interior activity and acting as a renovating element of the urban landscape. 


The building is formed by two superimposed bays arranged crosswise, intertwining full and empty spaces around them. A progressive sequence of compressions and expansions orders and qualifies the circulations around it. Continuous and diaphanous interior spaces are created from the concentration of horizontal seismic stresses in a few massive screens. 


We can distinguish two different relationships with the surroundings. On the one hand, the lower block defines a space that establishes punctual relations with the exterior. This level is defined by buttressed walls supporting the roof slab. This configuration allows for continuous linear skylights parallel to the walls between buttresses, through which light enters. This first floor houses the entrances and the client-facing meeting rooms.


A vertical void connects the two blocks at their intersection, allowing visual relationships between different levels and programs. Here, the light is vertical and comes from the skylights on the roof in contrast to the horizontal spatiality of the office area located on the upper level.


The upper block houses the offices and collective uses. Structurally, this block is resolved by two parallel longitudinal porticos that form two cantilevers at opposite ends, and beams perpendicular to them. This piece emphasizes horizontality, and links the user with the horizon through a screen of steel slats that also act as inverted curtain wall supports.

source: RUIZ PARDO - NEBREDA