IDOM is a global firm headquartered in Bilbao, Spain. It was founded by Rafael Escolá in 1957 and works across various sectors including infrastructure, architecture, consultancy, industry, energy, environmental, and nuclear design. With 5,300 professionals across 45 countries, IDOM seeks to integrate multiculturalism naturally.
Transformation, sustainability, and innovation lie at the heart of its design ideology. The firm is known for creating spaces that adapt to diverse functions and foster community interaction. Its projects reflect a combination of distinct geometries and expressive forms made using local materials and recycled elements.
With its sustainable approach to creating functional yet bold architecture, IDOM has secured tenth place in Archello's 100 best architecture firms in the world.
Here are five key projects that define the practice:
IDOM transforms a former early 20th-century military industry building into an expansive multisport centre. The renovation retains the existing saw-toothed roof form while interpolating it with new apertures that allow a pervious, light-filled environment. A new facade with a brick base and white cladding is introduced to harmonize with the neighbourhood’s architecture.
The interiors highlight a playful take on the original polychrome construction by replacing the previously grey surfaces with various colours that designate the new sports practice areas, which include the climbing wall, handball, basketball, badminton, and athletics courts. Embraced with warmth and light, the enormous, cathedral-like space exudes a fresh vitality.
2. New elementary school campus of Markham College
IDOM, in collaboration with Rosan Bosch Studio, devised an educational ecosystem that allows a flexible and sustainable learning environment by integrating outdoor areas. The Peruvian school witnessed a shift from traditional enclosed classrooms to versatile, open learning spaces that accommodate diverse classes and are naturally ventilated. The use of natural materials like bamboo, other woods, linoleum, cork, and in-situ concrete, reflects the principle of sustainability.
By blurring the line between indoor and outdoor and incorporating covered terraces, vertical gardens, and courtyards, the school embraces a climate-friendly design where the environment and education are in a symbiotic relationship with each other.
As a tribute to SAICA's ethos of innovation, IDOM designed the SAICA RDI center in Spain. The building’s unique facade of slatted louvers showcases a light, paper-like quality while its layout and interiors embody adaptability. The project highlight is its central core which functions as lightwell and a hub for communication and collaboration, fostering natural light and a sense of community. A thermo-activated structural system that regulates the building's indoor environment and passive strategies renders an energy-efficient structure that leaves a minimal environmental impact.
4. Park & Ride Parking facility Nantes
Located in a low-density residential development, in the town of Bouguenais, south of Nantes, France, the project results from a public competition to expand the city's mass transit network. The intermodal transport complex integrates a car park with a bus and tram station connected via a continuous canopy. A double helical ramp serves as the main hub for managing vertical flows and avoiding crossings between vehicles and pedestrians.
Landscaped courtyards interposed in the façade break the volume to allow light and enhance the overall experience while supporting the natural orientation of users. Additionally, perforated metal sheets and rounded corners of the building's ends housing the double helical ramp, render the building to appear volumetrically lighter.
Nestled on a plateau in the scenic village of Ollauri, Beronia Winery is a repertoire of enology, architecture, and sustainability. Designed as a partially buried building, integrated into the topography, the winery takes advantage of the thermal stability of land and gravity to collect grapes. The resultant structure is a pleasant interchange between nature and the product itself, wine, rooted in the depths of the earth.
