Orona IDeO - innovation city is the first European research and innovation centre for sustainable and self-sufficient urban mobility. With an overall cost of €160m, building work has started on a complex of buildings on a 40,000 m2 site from where the accessibility and mobility systems of the future will be designed.
The aim of Orona IDeO-innovation city is to create an Innovation Ecosystem to establish a space to bring together several different synergistic activities (Company + University + Research) as well as a laboratory where cutting edge technologies in eco-efficiency and energy management in buildings can be applied. The project is going to become a reference point for innovation and sustainability, covering the activities carried out at Orona IDeO-innovation city as well as the quality of the urban design, architecture and environmental value of the landscape characterising the Technology Park as a whole.
Location, architecture and urban design
The site chosen is the Galarreta area in Hernani. This is where the extension to the San Sebastian Technology Park, which is just a few minutes away, is to be built. The plans are to create 1,000 highly skilled jobs in the 15 hectares occupied by the extension site.
The main participants in the activities and innovation carried out at Orona IDeO-innovation city will operate in a synergistic way. The driving forces behind ORONA’s technology work are Orona eic (Elevator Innovation Centre), the University of Mondragon and Ikerlan-IK4 Research Alliance. At this new site they will be accompanied by the innovative companies that will be located in the extension to the Technology Park.
Technology parks in the 21st century are looking to integrate their operation with urban fabrics that provide intensive use, good accessibility and associated services and give way to innovation environments inspired by fragments of the city that are used intensively. Orona IDeO - innovation city highlights the importance of the concept of the city as a unifying force and meeting point for activities across its streets, squares and open spaces, and landscaping.
Orona IDeO - innovation city’s spaces
- Orona ZERO is the main building which will house the corporate headquarters of the Orona Group and Orona eic (Elevator Innovation Centre). Its image has been inspired by Orona’s logo and, from its most predominant view, its architecture recalls and alludes to ORONA’s main activity, vertical transport, as the building itself rises emphatically from the ground, opening the way to the set of buildings making up Orona IDeO-innovation city.
- The Orona Foundation will have its own building of a hybrid nature, where the teaching work of the University of Mondragon and in-service training will be combined with a variety of communal services.
- Building A3 will contain sophisticated laboratory facilities and a research space for the G3A project focusing on energy storage systems.
- Orona IDeO Gallery. Orona IDeO - innovation city is going to be an energy laboratory where clean energy systems integrated in the architecture will converge with systems for storage and efficient consumption in buildings. There will be a visitors’ hall and showroom in the square to highlight this experience, by showing how the energy management of buildings can be monitored in real time.
- EcoBoulevard, this is the linear park that forms the backbone of the new extension to the Technology Park. This space is the image and reference point for the park as a whole. It is characterised by its vegetation and the landscaping in the areas set aside for people, where pedestrians will have preference over cars. The EcoBoulevard ends in a viewing point over the landscape, from where you can see Hernani and which connects to the town centre. The interior of Orona IDeO - innovation city is structured around a pedestrian pathway that will link the current roundabout to the EcoBoulevard. Pedestrian traffic will pass between the ORONA buildings which will form the gateway to the square.
- Orona IDeO Square will take shape among the spaces designed to bring different elements together, as an urban assembly area with a warm, friendly environment which researchers, workers and students can share and make their own in order to encourage people to get together and exchange ideas. The square will also be a space open to the public, which together with the EcoBoulevard, will become an Urban Technology Park.
ORONA, leader in elevation and urban mobility
ORONA is a business group with more than four decades of experience, made up of 30 firms in Spain, France, Portugal, United Kingdom, Ireland, Belgium and the Netherlands, which provides employment for 4,080 people. Its work is focused on the design, manufacture, installation, maintenance and modernisation of accessibility and mobility solutions, like lifts or elevators, escalators, ramps and moving walkways. All based on an integrated service, covering all segments, from residential to commercial, health and social services, heritage buildings, heavy loads, etc.
ORONA is a co-operative experience under constant transformation, globally integrated, committed to social, energy and environmental challenges, which innovates to make eco-cities a reality and to create wealth and generate value in the community, without jeopardising future resources.