Barcelona Canyelles (ES)

How can the site contribute to the productive city?

Barcelona has been —and still is— a productive city, thanks most especially to its density, its compactness and its mix of uses. The Barcelona City Council is striving to make its urban area more complex by contributing to and maintaining these features, updated with new plans and projects which will be compatibilised with residential uses and municipal facilities. A city is productive if the necessary habitat is created in every district.
This project includes a dense mixed-use programme: social housing, sports facilities, public spaces and urban agriculture, energy generation, etc.

City strategy

The project area and the strategic site are an excellent opportunity to make the site more complex and shape a new link between the Canyelles and Roquetes districts. Core activities will be brought here and the connection between the city and the Collserola mountain will be revived.
This also signals a clear commitment to a naturalization of the spaces that will be generated as part of the important relationship with small-scale urban productivity. This is the reason for projects to include sustainability criteria and why we recommend multidisciplinary teams, which should generate a fresh dialogue between urban design, techniques and environmental aspects.

Site definition 

The site is in Barcelona’s northern Nou Barris District. It sits at the top of an old valley on the Collserola mountain, the starting point of a watercourse, now channelled and buried. The site is bounded by the Canyelles, Roquetes and Ronda de Dalt Districts, and backs onto Collserola mountain.
This topography is an important aspect to be taken into account in both the project and the overall strategic areas. At present, it is an empty space with parking lots, bowls courts and sports facilities. It is also being claimed by local citizens as a new space for neighbourhood facilities.

How is Production Considered in the Urban Diversity Program?

In Barcelona, production is considered to be equivalent to urban complexity. We have now moved a long way from the old zoning and urban segregation models which proposed separate residential and production areas. The Barcelona model interrelates and complexifies the territory. It creates spaces where housing, leisure and work are unequivocally interrelated. This generates quite intense contemporary spaces that have to be created using new design tools.
The proposed project includes a programme of urban vegetable gardens, which defines a basic, classic type of production. However, a productive urban area should be regarded as a complex space with opportunities in which the interrelations amongst its residential citizens are also part of its productivity, and the ability to attract outsiders is considered to be a key element as well.
Other aspects will also be appreciated, such as an enlargement of green zones, biodiversity, water self-sufficiency and potential energy generation, amongst others.