In 2009 M\u00e1laga City Council\u2019s business development company asked us to turn it into a municipal business incubator: a shared work floor, private company offices and a walk-in service for new entrepreneurs. The full design was stamped by the M\u00e1laga architects\u2019 registration board (visado<\/em>, COA M\u00e1laga) on 7 September 2009, file 2009\/004278. It was, in the studio\u2019s own words at the time, the first project of any real size we had done: we had started out in the middle of the crash and had lived off residential refurbishment. Workplaces have been a steady line of work for us, from the PROM\u00c1LAGA Teatinos business incubator<\/a> to the Polo Digital coworking<\/a> in the old Tabacalera tobacco factory.<\/p>\n The first decision was not to grow. The refurbished floor area is exactly the existing floor area: the project adds nothing. All the effort goes to what actually changed, which is the use. Moving from an audiovisual building not classed for public use to one that is (p\u00fablica concurrencia<\/em>) means redoing almost everything you cannot see: the electrical installation to the 2002 low-voltage regulations (RBT<\/em>), heating and cooling to the Spanish building code and the RITE, fire safety to CTE DB-SI plus M\u00e1laga\u2019s fire brigade by-law, and accessibility to Decree 72\/92 and the municipal by-law.<\/p>\n The shared work floor sits in the former stages: some 470 m\u00b2 by the studio\u2019s own measure, 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 bay, WCs on both floors and plant rooms, with the entrepreneur services on the first floor. Perimeter walls were lined out and new windows, set out by the existing structure, were cut into the old stage enclosure. Outside, a topographic survey was run so the surface car park could be re-planned for more spaces.<\/p>\n The declared challenge was never about looks. It was getting more than fifty people to work together in one large, hard room without interfering with each other. An empty television stage rings. Walls and ceilings were lined with absorbent material, and the company offices were closed with glass partitions up to the suspended ceiling and, from there to the slab above, dry lining with acoustic insulation.<\/p>\n That detail improved on site. The design had 2.30 m timber screens between offices; the client asked for full-height dry lining with acoustic insulation instead, which also allowed the services to be buried in the wall and the ground-floor corridor to be widened. Inside the shared floor the move went the other way: partitions to the rooms sitting within the old stages were dropped to 2.10 m, so the big room still read as one room. That preserved double height is what keeps the place feeling like a stage, and it is the best part of the project. It is the same argument in other open-plan workplaces we have taken on, at the Carranza coworking<\/a> and, on a smaller footprint, at the Solbyte offices<\/a> in the Guadalhorce industrial estate.<\/p>\n The site was formally handed over on 30 April 2010, with Covalco Grupo Constructor as main contractor and David Gonz\u00e1lez 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.<\/p>\n Everything that changed in between was recorded. Fire protection to the roof trusses went from intumescent paint to vermiculite render, with the architectural ceiling dropped below the truss. The client swapped the specified cooling system for a VRV system. The licensing department asked for a new lift compliant with current accessibility rules, and it went in where the old one had been. The car park retaining wall needed a bitumen emulsion and a drainage layer. And the floor finish was laid on a self-levelling screed.<\/p>\n The completion certificate records 1,353.67 m\u00b2 rather than the 1,544.59 m\u00b2 of our survey: the missing 190.92 m\u00b2 had already been signed off in a partial completion certificate stamped on 28 September 2010. That is the sort of paperwork that never appears in a photograph and decides whether the building opens. It is also why, on office jobs such as the Sidetours offices<\/a> in Mijas Costa, we still allow time for the consents and not only for the drawings. If you have an industrial building or a tertiary unit you are thinking of converting, let\u2019s talk at Klic Arquitectos<\/a>.<\/p>\nWith no extra floor area<\/h2>\n
Acoustics, the part nobody photographs<\/h2>\n
From site to handover<\/h2>\n
Gallery<\/h2>\n
![\"PROM\u00c1LAGA](\"https:\/\/www.klicarquitectos.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1-7.jpg\")
![\"Operational](\"https:\/\/www.klicarquitectos.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/2-7.jpg\")
![\"Comparative](\"https:\/\/www.klicarquitectos.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/3-6.jpg\")
Project data<\/h2>\n
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