The importance of the architectural void | City University Building | +UdeB Architects

AUTHOR: Jenny Torres

Passionate about reinterpreting the relationship between history and contemporaneity.

PROJECT NAME: City University Building

ARCHITECTS: +UdeB Architects

PHOTOGRAPHY: +UdeB Architects - Alejandro Arango Escobar

LOCATION: Bogota, Colombia

YEAR: 2016

SQM: 11,300 SQM

What do the word "oquedad," Carrera 7a, and public life in Bogotá have in common?

The answer is the architecture of the +UdeB studio; a testament to the fusion of creativity, functionality, and urban context. Their ability to create spaces that inspire and stimulate civic life has allowed for the materialization of solutions, concepts, and ideals in physical structures, including the Universidad Ciudad building.

The Universidad Ciudad building by +UdeB Arquitectos is located within the Javeriana University campus in Bogotá. The latter is strategically located in the heart of the city, in the San Diego neighborhood, one of the five neighborhoods connected by Carrera 7a as it runs north to south.

However, both Carrera 7a and public life in Bogotá have undergone changes in recent years. This has included the implementation of models that redefine the near and far landscape, buildings intersected by plazas or parks, integrating the street and introducing public space into them. These models have blurred the boundaries between public and private, establishing virtual boundaries between inside and outside.

Some of these development models are shared by the +UdeB firm. It believes that cities should undertake interventions of varying scale, appealing to dense urban development and a tropical periphery. Therefore, learning to interpret the needs for change is an imperative role for designers, urban planners, and architects. This is intended to ensure that the proposed buildings become an extension of their surroundings, not merely situated within them, inviting us to question and rethink the contemporary model of coexisting with nature, where such interventions in the city bring urban life to the city without endangering the ecosystem.

This firm is formed by architect Felipe Uribe and social communicator Beatriz Turbay. Together, they have created civic projects that have acted as catalysts for urban renewal and social recovery in different cities across the country, as well as multi-family and single-family housing. They have contributed to urban and architectural research with a multidisciplinary team, where the findings have significantly contributed to the formulation and implementation of strategies, emphasizing the creation of distinctive environmental models in their civic space projects.

City University Building

Now, what does the word "cavity" have to do with the Universidad Ciudad building?

The meaning of the void is "space that is left empty in a solid body, naturally or artificially." From this definition, other questions arise: Why does perforating a building have architectural significance? Can public space be perforated? What spatial qualities does implementing the void in the design provide?

To answer these questions, we will first analyze the overall nature of the building; it emerged from a public competition in which the proposal required that it generate a new access to the city and integrate the campus with a more successful public relationship, in order to bring life to Carrera Séptima (Seventh Avenue). Until then, the university campus had suffered from a negative condition in the perimeter buildings, which created an impermeable barrier between the university and the city.

The design takes into account three aspects: connecting the campus to the city, fragmenting the built mass, and welcoming urban and public life.

1.    Link: Campus - City.

The first step was to extend the lot toward 40th Street. By eliminating the original traffic circle, the car lobby integrates with the first level of the building, maintaining both vehicular and pedestrian flow in an arrival area protected from the city's harsh climate. This connection is visually achieved at the corner of 40th Street and 7th Avenue, where an urban framework is created. At the pedestrian level, it frames the hills, while on the north side, it creates a visual opening from the campus to the city and vice versa.

This visual opening is proposed because the lot on which the campus is located is topographically developed on a steep slope, the foothills of Bogotá's Eastern Hills; a condition that defines Javeriana as a terraced university. This was leveraged to elevate pedestrian access, thus providing ideal access control for entering the university and expanding the sidewalk for urban life.

In this same sense of privacy and control, the office proposes a powerful upper volume with a pixelated texture to negotiate and blend with the entire range of materials in the area. This volume encloses the building and provides privacy to the uses on the main road. The opposite facade, facing the university, is fully glazed to open the building to the view of the hills, providing natural light to the interior during the day and transforming it into a large luminous mass over the campus at night.

This connection is not limited to the first level; therefore, the fragmentation of the mass is the next step.

2.    Fragment: the built mass

The fragmentation of the overwhelming volume is possible by creating two cracks that allow the passage of connecting perspectives and by dividing the programmatic component into three. These cracks house open spaces for living and studying, fostering collaboration and the exchange of ideas. They are designed to optimize the use of space and facilitate interaction between users, creating an environment conducive to learning and creativity.

The function of these cracks is to verticalize the civic space, a condition intended to be replicated throughout the campus in the future as a strategy to offset the systematic reduction of common space due to the institution's accelerated growth.

So, let's delve into this programmatic condensation. The different levels were conceived as a response to the gradient of privacy and life of Carrera Séptima, the first “crack” is found at the level of public space, differentiating the first four levels occupied by the administrative offices from the basement, being more public, they have glass surfaces, however, from the fifth level onwards, where we find the second “crack” with cafes and commercial premises that integrate but separate the last four levels, to protect the auditorium, the halls and specialized classrooms from the noise of this busy avenue and the strong west wind, they are completely closed.

3.    Welcoming: urban and public life.

To enable the building to accommodate citizens and students, the final design premise was to widen the platform, creating a vestibular ambulatory, that is, a generous double-height space with hollows that make the wall permeable to both passage and views.

To achieve this urban hall space, the two main volumes are shifted and offset in opposite directions, north and south. The roof is the very architecture of the building, where the intervention promoted the creation of an elevated arrival plaza in the interior.

This welcoming approach is not only urban but also environmental, incorporating sustainable and eco-friendly elements into its design. +UdeB has demonstrated a commitment to environmental responsibility by integrating energy-efficient technologies, water recycling systems, and eco-friendly construction materials into the building. This focus on sustainability not only reduces the building's environmental impact but also promotes a culture of ecological awareness among its occupants and the community at large.

Now that we have carried out a general analysis of the building, we will resolve your doubts regarding the architectural cavity.

Why is piercing a building of architectural importance?

For the architect, perforating the building is nothing more than creating porches, thresholds, and urban reception spaces; however, the implementation of the hollow as an architectural tool generates transitional spaces, where the public and private life of the buildings enjoy a setting of integration and convergence.

We can see this in the Universidad Ciudad building, in its common areas where it integrates users, in its pedestrian access porch where it integrates the campus and the city, in the void of the top four floors where it integrates comfort qualities into the spaces, and in the frames generated by the displacement of the volumes where it integrates the views of the Bogotá hills.

Can public space be pierced?

In some cases, perforating public space can be an effective strategy for improving pedestrian connectivity, accessibility, and circulation in congested urban areas. Generally, the idea of ​​intervening or perforating architectural elements within the urban environment includes publicly accessible areas, such as streets, plazas, parks, and pedestrian walkways. These can take various forms, such as underground pedestrian walkways, elevated walkways, or the incorporation of architectural elements that traverse or perforate public space.

However, it is important to carefully consider the impact these interventions can have on the existing urban fabric, as well as on the experience and perception of public space users. For this point, we will highlight two buildings among the architectural firm's properties in Medellín: the Pies Descalzos architectural complex, built in 1999, and the EPM library, completed in 2005. In both, we can glimpse commonalities with the Universidad Ciudad building.

Barefoot Building: The hollow is implemented especially in the section to analyze the changes in scale of the façade facing the street, the interior of the building, and the façade facing the plaza. This project lacks a rear or butt, serving as a welcoming stage and antechamber to the intelligent building.

We see how the main street has a glass façade, while the plaza has a more substantial one. The extension of the roof outside the wall gives the impression of a portion of the block that has been removed, an action referred to by the architect as hollow.

The EPM Library: With its sloping shape and glass façade, it blends harmoniously with the surrounding park, creating a virtual porch between the building and the plaza. Inside, it offers bright and welcoming spaces for reading, research, and social interaction, with a combination of visually intertwined spaces, generating a variability of proportions, predominantly filled and empty spaces.

What spatial qualities does implementing hollowness in design provide?

The implementation of voids in the design provides qualities such as the exterior, creating an anteroom, an activator of civic life where one can remain in the building without having entered it; maximizing livability by inviting those who travel through the city to meet or enter. The interior, providing interconnection, creates a space for coexistence on different levels, balancing nature, architecture, and functionality. This design is made possible through:

Luminosity: They allow natural light into the building, improving the quality of the indoor environment and reducing dependence on artificial lighting.

Ventilation: By allowing air circulation, they facilitate natural ventilation within the building, improving air quality and thermal comfort for occupants.

Views and perspectives: They create opportunities for panoramic views and interesting perspectives both inside and outside the building.

Integration with the environment: They can facilitate the integration of the building with its urban and natural surroundings, creating a smooth transition between the interior and exterior.

Interaction and connectivity: They serve as meeting and connecting spaces between different areas of the building, fostering social interaction and collaboration among users.

Architecture has the ability to inspire new behaviors in its users, whether inside or outside; this is why connection and interaction from the ground floor to the roof is so important; the integration between public life and the building. This concept becomes an imperative architectural element when considering the importance of perforating the building to improve its relationship with the urban environment and public space.

The implementation of voids in architectural design contributes to these objectives by creating spaces that facilitate or significantly enrich the spatial experience, providing comfort, interesting visuals, integration and interaction with the built environment, and a dynamic aesthetic. Creating voids or empty spaces within the building provides opportunities for interaction with the surrounding public space, such as plazas or parks, which contributes to revitalizing and reactivating urban life in the area.

While it is possible to perforate public space in certain circumstances, it is essential to carefully evaluate the benefits and potential negative impacts of such interventions before implementing them. Therefore, we invite you to consider the spatial richness that a void can bring to your next project or the urban life surrounding it.