Urban Insertions

2013

Team point of view
The site's privileged situation is a great opportunity to improve the connection between Barcelona and Santa Coloma and to the banks of the Besòs River. Our proposal is based on claiming this natural path and enhancing its connection with Sagrera Park, keeping the competition site as an empty space that becomes the vertex of the future urban green belt.
To achieve this, we propose a re-naturing of the streets leading towards the river and a new pedestrian bridge that provides a better connection between both sides. Extending the scope of the competition, we relocate the 80,000 m2 housing program in the adjacent industrial area, inserting small habitable pieces into the existing structures and adding activity at ground floor level to revitalise the district.

Jury point of view
This is a brave, intelligent proposal that works simultaneously with global strategies and local actions. It pinpoints the value of the site as the vertex of the urban green belt that runs alongside the Besòs River, which in consequence is incorporated as an additional construction-free green zone. To fulfil the brief, it relocates the 80,000m2 to the adjacent industrial area and regenerates the district from within. It also proposes to renaturalise the streets leading to the river and to connect the two sides.

2014-2015
As part of the dialogue with the different associations, the municipality decided to propose both winning teams two different sites, located close to the competition site: for Carles Enrich’s team –“Rec Comtal / La Sagrera”. The main target of the study is to preserve and protect one of the most significant hydraulic structure in Barcelona’s city history: the Rec Comtal.
The study has simultaneously developed the metropolitan and park areas so as to provide coherence and unity regarding intervention criteria along the path of the Rec Comtal. The intervention elements are water, vegetation and soil (as topography and as material). To this end, it plans to valorise the hydraulic structure through environmental and historical recovering operations, contemplating the regain of the running water possible along the longer section and understanding the archaeological pre-existences and existing trees as structuring elements. For the purpose of linking the city’s culture and history with nature and leisure, they propose re-naturalization actions by planting riparian vegetation, orchards and fruit trees to promote the agricultural character around the Rec.

2016-2018
The first commission was followed by a second one: the Rec Comtal Strategical Plan. The intervention proposes a new topography that appraises the historical traces of the Rec Comtal, but also the Roman aqueduct and the remains of the mill and the bridge of Santa Coloma. The project implemented works with the pre-existence and the territory. It works with re-naturalization as one of its strong points. This Strategical Plan must be an urban tool for the further public space works near Rec Comtal’s area.
The team will develop a project for an archeologic park in Sant Andreu and also planned 24 additional intervention points on site. The project is in the city agenda.