COLLEGE CIRCLE.

A remarkably economical university building in which simple materials are used to create a sense of decency.

Originally an important colonial stronghold, Cordoba is Argentina's second city and historic centre of learning. One of the first universities in South America was founded here in the seventeenth century by the Jesuits, whose need to train priests led to the establishment of a theological college. By the eighteenth century, the university had become the focus of local cultural life. Perpetually at odds with Buenos Aires, Cordoba has acquired a reputation for radical politics and staunch opposition to central government. Today, Cordoba's university is still an important institution, with a student population of around 80 000. Faculty buildings are spread throughout the city and suburbs and new elements intermittently add to the university's organic growth. One of the most recent additions is a general teaching building that will serve five faculties. Designed by local architect Miguel Angel Roca, the building contains classrooms, a 300-seat lecture theatre, seminar rooms and coffee shop. Roca's model is a trad itional monastic or collegiate cloister, with the various spaces arranged around a central court or patio. Here, the fourth side of the courtyard is open, to reveal the nature of the building and connect it with the wider campus.

Roca's affinity for strong geometry (ARs October 1992, October 1994, July 1999) is expressed in a compact, circular plan, penetrated at the south-east corner by the cubic volume of the lecture theatre. Pairs of cellular rooms housing offices and classrooms are arranged on each of the three sides of the courtyard. This necklace of rooms is linked by an enclosed perimeter arcade, creating a generous, informal space for the ebb and flow of student life. It can also be used for small exhibitions. Light filters through a curved wall of blue glass bricks on the south side, bathing this part of the arcade in a luscious, sapphire luminance.

Lying at the foot of the Sierre Grande mountains, Cordoba has a dry climate with hot summers, so the external patio is shaded by an angular canopy made from folded and tilted planes of fine steel mesh supported by slim cylindrical columns. The effect is curiously lyrical, like a cluster of strange aircraft wings hovering over the courtyard, but more prosaically, the diaphanous structure also diffuses heat and glare. Materials are deliberately robust and low-maintenance - brick, painted concrete, glass blocks - yet as with all Roca's buildings, there is an overwhelming sense of decency and dignity coaxed from economy of means.

Architect

Miguel Angel Roca, Cordoba

1. One side of the quadrangle peels away to reveal the patio shaded by a diaphanous canopy.

2. Hermetic, cubic volume of the lecture theatre penetrates the circular plan.

3. Folded mesh 'wings' hover above the courtyard.

4. Part of the arcade that wraps around the inside edge of the patio.

5. An undulating ceiling ripples through the lecture theatre.

1. patio/courtyard

2. university council

3. offices

4. classrooms

5. coffee shop

6. computing classrooms

7. seminar room

8. lecture theatre

9. foyer

10. arcade