EDDEA is born: the studio formalises its name and moves into its headquarters at the Port

In 2007 the studio that José María de Cárdenas and Luis Ybarra had founded fifteen years earlier left the DeCYA brand behind and became EDDEA. The change of name came with a move that says a good deal about the firm: the studio settled into the headquarters it had designed for itself on the Carretera de la Esclusa, in the heart of the Port of Seville.

A headquarters among cranes and containers

The 2,300 m² building stands opposite the Batán dock, among cranes, containers and the nearby railway line. Project direction was by José María de Cárdenas, Luis Ybarra, Alberto Gamboa and Joaquín Martín, with photography by Fernando Alda.

The building combines a lightweight skin of Corten steel with a curtain wall, mounted on a prefabricated steel frame with bolted joints, designed from the outset so that it could be dismantled and reused in another building. Inside, two storeys above ground are articulated by a central double-height space, with a lower floor lit by a light well: open-plan, undivided spaces that translate the studio’s open, team-based way of working into architecture.

Choosing the port

Settling in the port rather than in a business park was a deliberate decision: to work every day looking out over the port’s activity and the river. Fifteen years later, that outlook would turn into a commission with Seville’s Port Urban District (Distrito Urbano Portuario).