Berta Gelabert de Trincheria+Elena Ortiz+Júlia Sabaté
Updating and consolidating the relationship between industry and urbanism is essential to avoid sequestering industry on the outskirts of the city as a monofunctional fabric.
The project is located in an industrial area within Barcelona. This area, like many other industrial zones, is being reconverted in a way that adds aspects of a more urban scale and leaves no space for industry. We are dealing with an area with industrial characteristics and dimensions that is being adapted to the urban scale. Therefore, instead of continually sending productive activities to the periphery of the city, it is necessary to update the relationship between industry and urbanity to avoid creating monofunctional fabrics. Currently, in the northern part of the Poblenou neighborhood, we find 22,700 m2 of unused industrial buildings. It is for this reason that this is where we must begin to transform this neighborhood into a productive neighborhood, where daily life and productive life can coexist.
The first objective is to maintain the productive character of the area, adding collective spaces and spaces for daily use. In a predefined and flexible way, the openings are inhabited, the façade limits are blurred, the network of passages is introduced and the necessary uses are established. The project process is understood as a process of constant transformation, as built spaces are left empty.
00- Initial state
Discovery of the Poblenou and Sant Martí neighborhood, as an industrial area in current transformation, semi-empty – as a counterpoint to the southern part, already exploited by the current economic system – and with the potential to accommodate more life.
01- Analysis of existing resources
Analysis of the activity included in the current warehouses of the neighborhood, mostly from the automotive industry, with a large part of them in the process of displacement, already empty.
02- New network of passages
Definition of a new network of streets and passages, which adds rhythm to the current division of industrial blocks.
03- New auxiliary structure
Construction, in the currently unused warehouses, of a new parallel structure that accompanies the current structure.
04- Definition of productive and living spaces
Addition of communication cores in height, new skins and new prefabricated service cores-cells that enable a rapid settlement in the current generalized situation of lack of affordable housing.
The housing typologies are organized longitudinally, with the access on the north side and a gallery facing south. With this layout and the core of facilities in the center, four different housing typologies are defined. The ‘M’ (45 m2) and ‘M+’ (65 m2) typologies make use of the facility core on one of the two sides. On the other hand, the ‘L’ (75 m2) and ‘L+’ (75 m2) typologies are connected to the facility wall on all sides. In addition to housing and productive spaces, it is also essential to generate spaces with the structural and constructive flexibility to generate other types of collective activities.
In short, this project is a test of the design of a city space where productivity and all the essential activities of daily life coexist. Thus generating more complex spaces and enhancing the eco-dependent relationships that can be produced.
Authors: Berta Gelabert de Trincheria+Elena Ortiz+Júlia Sabaté.
Location:Barcelona, Spain.
University: UPC – ETSAV.
Year: 2022