BTEK, Technology Interpretation Centre best cultural building of 2009 on the ArchDaily architecture web

The Technology Interpretation Centre, BTEK has been selected as the Best Cultural Building 2009 on the most visited architectural web site in the world, ArchDaily. This web site, created two years ago to offer information about architecture, at the start of the year set up a competition to select the best buildings in the world in a variety of categories: including culture, religion, education and sports. Votes were made exclusively through the social networks, Facebook and Twitter; in the cultural building category, BTEK received the most votes.

BTEK, in the Bizkaia Technology Park, is due to be opened in the forthcoming months. However, before coming into operation, it has already received three major awards: firstly, from ArchDaily; secondly, a Mention of Honour in the 8th Sao Paulo Architecture Biennial. And thirdly, we have recently heard, a Mention of Honour in the AR Awards 2009, organised by the well-known British architectural journal, The Architectural Review.

The BTEK building is the work of architect Gonzalo Carro, from ACXT who designed the building as a landmark in the landscape, using two pyramidal volumes, apparently free standing and connected together below the ground. The first is a black volume which rises out of the ground, heavy and closed by three metal walls, with a covering totally formed of a reticule of solar panels. The commitment to clean renewable energies is applied to the rest of the building: geothermal systems, materials, exhibition content, etc.

The second volume, in contrast to the first, has two curtain walls and a covering of artificial grass, emerging as an extension to the ground and occupying the whole of the plot to the building’s limits.

Bizkaia technology Park took the first steps towards the creation of BTEK in 2005, with the main objective of socialising Science and Technology. In 2009 construction work on the building was completed and the production and construction of the different museographical modules is currently being finished ready for the opening in forthcoming months.