Permeable Cerdà

Poblenou District in Barcelona
The 22@ plan: the city’s new I.C.T. cluster

Also called the “Catalan Manchester”, Poblenou is the old industrial district of Barcelona, where industrialization of the city began at the end of the 19th century. It is now being transformed into an I.C.T. (Information and Communications Technologies) district called 22@ by replacing the old heavy industry activities that have moved away by light knowledge industries based on electronics, software, hardware, culture, design, office space, convention centers, hotels, etc.

The aim of the project is to take a typical block of this old neighborhood and intervene in it by being sensitive to the past and the industrial heritage while proposing necessary functions, like affordable work+live units and increased public space. The design strategies are multiscalar and interdisciplinary, and thought from the perspectives of urban design, architecture and public space.

Singularities of the district: passageways, green courtyards, industrial heritage, half consolidated blocks

A block that presented samples of all the outstanding features of the district (half consolidated blocks, industrial heritage buildings, passageways, green inner courtyards) is chosen as the site for this graduation project. The proposal tries to incorporate and enhance all these elements. It can be considered a testing ground for many of the transformations that are taking place within the 22@ plan area.

Permeable Cerdà
A thoughtful balance between preserving and opening

The urban design strategies aim at opening up the closed block, recovering the permeability that the Eixample of Ildefons Cerdà originally envisaged, with public spaces within each of his world-famous chamfered blocks. In order to achieve this permeability, carefully thought-out and selective demolitions of abandoned workshops within the block’s interior are proposed, in this way gaining much needed public space.

The new public space and associated buildings, both at the perimeter and in the interior of the block, are designed keeping with the small and medium scale additive growth patterns typical of the neighbourhood’s urban tissue and adapting with precision to the contours of the existing buildings. The proposed programs include a new public I.C.T. workshops building closing the perimeter of the block, which contains affordable specialised workshops that range from 10m2 mini-units to a fully-equipped 200m2 audiovisual studio.

The refurbishment of an existing Art Nouveau warehouse into a public mmultipurpose hall is also envisaged, while a new public housing building wraps around an exposed party wall in front of the warehouse. Within the block, small commercial or office pavillions help to activate the interior of the block. The whole is vertebrated by the new passageway, which is a continuation of the existing cul-de-sac alley.