Orona Zero Building

Abstract

The Orona Zero building is considered to be the most emblematic building of a new business and research campus under development by Orona Company at Hernani, Spain. This building would be the new headquarters of the company.The building has a layout consisting of an inclined ring, partially embedded in the ground, that provides great dynamism to the iconic picture of the building. This ring has an outer diameter of 90 m, an inner diameter of 45 m, and a height of 16 m; and its outer part cantilevers from the ground approximately 30 m, this being the most significant element of the project.The structure of the building has been designed, from the very beginning, in close cooperation between the architectural team and the structural engineers, in a very interactive workflow. This collaborative work has made it possible to achieve a noncanonic building with a reasonably efficient structural system, thanks to the consideration of structural issues in the first stages of the project: structural use of the inner and outer facades of the building, geometric standardization of the whole building to ease fabrication and construction, use of building’s floors as diaphragms, and structural “flanges” of the structural facade.The result of this process may serve as an example of overcoming the structural challenges in designing an efficient structural system in a non-conventional building taking the advantage of its own form and in a nonintrusive way.