Endesa Pavilion

Endesa Pavilion in Barcelona, Spain, by IaaC, 2011

The following text and images are courtesy Institute for advanced architecture in Catalonia (IaaC).

Endesa Pavilion is a self-sufficient solar prototype installed at the Marina Dock, within the framework of the International BCN Smart City Congress. Over a period of one year it will be used as control room for monitoring and testing several projects related to intelligent power management.

The pavilion is actually the prototype of a multi-scale construction system—a façade composed by modular components, like solar brick, that respond to photovoltaic gaining, solar protection, insulation, ventilation, lighting...The same parametric logic adapts façade geometries to the specific environmental requirements for each point of the building. It is is a single component that integrates all levels of intelligence that the building needs.

From "form follows function" (classic XX century statement) to "form follows energy": The façade opens in reaction to the solar path—active and permeable to the south, closed and protective to the north. The behavior of this skin makes visible the environmental and climatic processes that surrounds the prototype. Higher overhangs allow more energy collection and greater protection against the incident radiation during summer.

Solar houses should be built with solar materials. The wood, grown with solar power, is used now to build a self-sufficient photovoltaic pavilion. The current digital fabrication techniques, and the last advances in energy management and distributed production, make technology closer to the user, open and participatory. The Endesa pavilion is an accessible device, technologically soft and easily understandable. Its construction, materials and energy, and its climatic behavior are transparent to the inhabitant.