A television stage turned into one big room where more than fifty people work at once, under a timber acoustic ceiling and between blue glass partitions. The PROMÁLAGA CW coworking space occupies the former Canal Málaga Televisión stages: 1,544 m² built for shooting drama, not for working in. The 2009 brief was to turn them into a coworking space at Andalusia Technology Park where nobody got in anyone else’s way, and to do it without adding a single square metre.
The brief
The building dates from 2001, is the work of Salvador Moreno Peralta and was the headquarters of Canal Málaga Televisión: offices not open to the public, a main stage and a secondary one, and two storeys plus a rooftop stair enclosure and a second rooftop structure for the broadcast antenna. It stands detached on a plot of roughly 2,500 m², under the IND1 zoning of Málaga’s 1998 general plan (PGOU), and has a built area of 1,544.59 m² according to our own measured survey, against the 1,467 m² given in the cadastral records (Catastro).
In 2009 Málaga City Council’s municipal business development company commissioned us to turn it into a business incubator: a coworking space, company offices and support offices for new entrepreneurs. The basic and construction design was stamped by the College of Architects (visado, COA Málaga) on 7 September 2009, file 2009/004278. It was, in the studio’s own words at the time, “the first project of any real size that we built”: the practice had been set up just as the crisis hit, and our background was residential refurbishment.
Without adding a single square metre
The first decision was not to grow. The built area after the refurbishment is exactly the existing built area: the project extends nothing. All the effort goes into what actually changed, which is the use. Going from an audiovisual building not open to the public to a building open to the public (pública concurrencia) means redoing almost everything you cannot see: the electrical installation to the 2002 Low Voltage Electrotechnical Regulations (RBT), heating and cooling to the CTE (Spanish Technical Building Code) and the RITE, fire safety to CTE DB-SI and Málaga’s fire brigade by-law, and accessibility to Decree 72/92 and the municipal by-law.
The shared workspace sits in the former stages: some 470 m² according to the studio’s project report, sized for more than fifty people working at the same time. Around it and above it are 24 company offices, two meeting rooms and a boardroom, four phone booths, a waiting area, a vending area, WCs on both floors and plant rooms, with the entrepreneur support offices on the first floor. The external walls were lined on the inside and new windows, set out to the grid of the existing structure, were opened in the old stage box. Outside, a topographic survey was carried out to re-plan the surface car park and gain more spaces.
Acoustics, the problem you cannot see
The project’s declared challenge was never about looks: it was getting more than fifty people to work together in one large, hard volume without interfering with each other. An empty television stage reverberates. Walls and ceilings were lined with sound-absorbing elements, and the company offices were enclosed with glass partitions up to the level of the suspended ceiling and, from the suspended ceiling to the slab above, dry partitioning with acoustic insulation.
That detail improved on site. The design had 2.30 m timber screens between offices; the client asked to replace them with floor-to-ceiling dry partitioning with acoustic insulation, which also allowed the services to be concealed in the walls and the ground-floor corridor to be widened. Inside the shared workspace the move went the other way: the partitions of the rooms set within the old stages were lowered to 2.10 m, so that the big room would still read as a single room. That preserved double height is what keeps the place feeling like a stage, and it is the best part of the project.
From site works to completion
The setting-out record marking the start of works was signed on 30 April 2010, with Covalco Grupo Constructor as main contractor and David González Faura as health and safety coordinator during construction. The design allowed six months. The works were certified complete on 13 December 2010: about seven and a half months.
Everything that changed along the way was put in writing. Fire protection to the roof trusses went from intumescent paint to vermiculite render, with the architectural ceiling lowered below the trusses. The client replaced the specified heating and cooling system with a VRV system. The council’s activity licensing department asked for a new lift compliant with current accessibility regulations, and it was installed where the old one had been. The retaining wall in the car park needed a bitumen emulsion and a drainage layer. And the floor finish was laid on a self-levelling mortar screed.
The final completion certificate records 1,353.67 m², not the 1,544.59 m² of the survey: the missing 190.92 m² had already been certified earlier, in a partial completion certificate stamped on 28 September 2010. It is the kind of detail that never appears in any photograph and that decides whether the building opens or not. If you have an industrial building or a commercial unit you want to convert, let’s talk at Klic Arquitectos.
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Project data
- Project: PROMÁLAGA CW · municipal coworking
- Typology: Refurbishment with change of use and activity: former television stages converted into a coworking space and business centre
- Use: Commercial / offices. Municipal business incubator with a coworking space, company offices and entrepreneur support offices
- Location: Andalusia Technology Park (PTA), Campanillas, Málaga
- Design year: 2009 (basic and construction design stamped by COA Málaga on 7 September 2009, file 2009/004278)
- Construction year: 2010 (setting-out record on 30 April; final completion certificate on 13 December)
- Status: Built and completed
- Built area: 1,544.59 m² according to the studio’s measured survey (1,467 m² according to the cadastral records). The project does not increase the existing built area
- Plot area: Approx. 2,500 m² (IND1 zoning, 1998 general plan)
- Units: Shared workspace of some 470 m² for more than 50 people working at the same time, a figure from the studio’s project report, plus 24 company offices according to the project schedule of areas
- Programme: Open workstations in the former stages, 24 company offices, two meeting rooms and a boardroom, four phone booths, reception and entrance porch, waiting area, vending area, WCs on both floors, plant rooms and a re-planned surface car park
- Key elements: Preserved double height · perforated timber acoustic ceiling · blue tempered glass partitions · PROMÁLAGA CW corporate signage
- Material palette: Natural timber flooring and acoustic ceiling, architectural white, blue glass, industrial pendant luminaires
- Timeframe: 6 months allowed in the design; about 7.5 months in practice
- Client: Promálaga · Málaga City Council (municipal business development company)
- Main contractor: Covalco Grupo Constructor S.L.
- Structure: Existing, retained and fire-protected with vermiculite render
- Interior design: Klic Arquitectos (furniture and signage included in the design)
- Health and safety coordination during construction: David González Faura
- Original building: 2001, Salvador Moreno Peralta (former Canal Málaga Televisión headquarters)
- Klic services: Basic and construction design, health and safety study, site management, interior design and signage
- Practice: Klic Arquitectos
- Team: Juan Goñi and Ruth Buján, lead architects
