NUA arquitectures refurbishes an agricultural machine repair complex in tarragona, spain NUA arquitectures refurbishes an agricultural machine repair complex in tarragona, spain

spanish studio NUA arquitectures has refurbished the ‘gon-gar’ workshop, an industrial cluster consisting of two buildings and the owners’ home, located in the compact urban area of benissanet, a small, rural town in tarragona. the project involves the reorganization and expansion of the former structure, which has been the home of the agricultural machinery repair company for almost 50 years. in order to blend the new complex into its surroundings, which consist mainly of three-story terraced houses with gable roofs, the architects combined a new corner façade, facing south and east, that responds to the needs of the interior, with a form that reflects the urban landscape, and creates a new front for the cluster.

all images by adrià goula

NUA arquitectures has converted an abandoned, pre-existing warehouse in the center of the workshop into a double-space office building, with new windows and skylights that improve the lighting and spatial conditions of the interior. lightweight structures define private offices and furniture, while the interventions aim at interrelating with the pre-existing features.

a new, open-plan industrial building has been constructed, which is attached to the former, and will be used as a mechanical workshop and exhibition area. the main structure of the workshop has been designed following the main axes of the existing building, and has been adapted to the limits of its trapezoidal plot by means of a lightweight steel structure supported by perimeter pillars. a series of north-facing triangular skylights allow plenty of natural light to enter the 625 square meter space.

by relocating the offices to the center of the cluster and constructing the new workshop, the architects have managed to multiply the internal connectivity of the complex and improve the quality of working life while increasing the surface area by 938 sqm, and thus creating a total of 2,610 sqm. the two buildings are functionally connected on the ground floor thanks to the opening of new connections in strategic places, which allow the transferring of machinery and products between the different spaces. at the same time, they are also connected programmatically with the company’s new meeting room housed in a laminated wood attic on the first floor level of the workshop.

‘the reinterpretation of the traditional geometric and compositional rules of benissanet’s residential urban fabric makes it possible to integrate and establish the necessary urban continuity between the new workshop, the existing warehouse and the surroundings,’ the architects note. ‘the dimensions of the structural bays, the rhythm of the slopes of the roof and the profile of the side façade, the size, location, and proportion of the gaps, and the textural treatment of the thermo-clay walls partially covered with mortar intend to modulate, defragment, and integrate the new volume of approximately 20x30m of façade in the existing urban morphology.’