endesapavilion002

Super Solar

Friday, September 7th, 2012

By Justin Ray

Photos by Adrià Goula

Who says you can't have brains and good looks? Not the Catalonians.

Currently featured as a hangout space in the Smart City Expo in Barcelona, Endesa Pavilion features distinctive oblique angled roofs and windows which conspire to make an unusual and interesting exterior and light-loving interior. We'd dig the building even if it wasn't a vehicle for various smart and efficient design techniques. Which, in fact, it is.

Designed by the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia, the building's oddly positioned roofs are meant to optimize the structure's efficiency of capturing sunlight. Its largely made of wood because of the material's natural thermal insulation, not to mention its adaptability given the abstract design. The architects say "Endesa Pavilion is actually a research prototype of a new solar-optimized prefabricated skin system." The Endesa Pavilion also has less obvious features such as "solar bricks" embedded in its walls that insulate and protect from solar radiation, but also collect information about the amount of energy the building uses and saves. See? Good looking and smart.

Endesa Pavilion is on view at the Olympic Port of Barcelona during the Smart City Expo which runs through November 15, 2012.

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