Sayrach Principal Office Club

Casa Sayrach is a beautiful modernist building in Barcelona designed in 1918 by Manuel Sayrach and characterized by spectacular organic shapes and decorations, inspired by natural and marine elements in homage to Catalonia and the Mediterranean. The main floor of the building was reformed in 2020 by External Reference, a studio founded and directed by the architect Carmelo Zappulla, who accepted the challenge of transforming this emblematic space of the city into a new concept of shared office, the Sayrach Principal Office Club, now also the office of the studio.

If on one hand the structural renovation was mainly conservative, based on the respectful restoration of all the architectural elements encountered during the process of renovation, on the other hand the overall concept is characterized by a successful balance between symbiosis and contrast. The spaces interact with the artistic tailor made furniture, establishing a relationship of continuity and rupture at the same time and offering a dialogic reading of the context that enhances the characteristics of the space.

The 360 m2 of the Sayrach Principal Office Club are divided into eight areas. Starting from the circular entrance, connected to an internal patio with modernist elements, the different spaces are accessed through the long corridor that connects the meeting rooms, some more work areas, the kitchen and the bathroom. After the last large meeting room, the Sayrach Principal Office Club unveils a large open-air terrace, a privilege in the heart of Barcelona. The meeting rooms are the most important areas, characterized by furniture elements designed specifically for their context. Here, like sculptures in their squares, the tables are located in the center of each room, defining and differentiating it. In this sequence of concatenated and fluid spaces, the bathroom also becomes important. This room, although all the original elements and finishes have been preserved, has been theatrically transformed, generating a stage in the bathtub that is used as a backdrop in the main events.

External Reference has given life to an exclusive and contemporary space that seems to arise from the same building: the structures and components of the organic world are monitored, studied and designed thanks to the parametric design, the creative process that allows to find design solutions through the use of data and parameters in the form of algorithms.

The materials for the production are innovative and surprising: for the Mangrove table and chairs the 3D printing of an advanced polymer is used and combined with a natural compound capable of mineralizing that absorbe the CO2 and make the furniture work like trees; the Spinal table is made by milling solid beech with 5-axis machines; The Milky table digitally translates the bacterial communities of raw milk, transforming them into an innovative white Corian cast table.

Between organic morphologies and new technologies, craftsmanship and digital, history and contemporaneity, the External Reference studio has created for the Sayrach Principal Office Club a collection of rooms where you can dream, imagine and create, where you can meet and produce new intellectual synergies together.

Mangrove table and chairs
The marine world is the main source of inspiration and Mangroves are trees that grow in environments where the water contains high concentrations of salts and water levels are regularly changing. Growing where the substrate is unstable, Mangroves have developed an architecture of complex roots that rise from the main branch producing flying structures. This fractal structure has been studied and simulated computationally for the designing of the Mangrove table and the chairs.

The production technology is the 3D printing and the material used is an advanced polymer that integrates PLA (polylactic acid) with a 100% natural mineral compound, with the property of mineralizing, thus absorbing CO2 and harmful substances such as NOx and VOC. These are furnishing elements that function like a real tree that absorbs CO2.

Spinal table and the organic lamp
The Spinal table is an object based on the serial repetition of vertebrae. Designed using parametric tools, the table was built by milling solid beech with 5-axis machines.

Just as in the atrium of Casa Sayrach circular shapes like shells and jellyfish coexist with columns, in this room the Spinal table dialogues with a giant lamp.

The lamp, made up of circular elements, is conceived as an organic ceiling that integrates the lighting, expands and deforms the space by means of convex mirrors.

Carmelo Zappulla, External Reference & Chu Uroz