La Gardunya, Barcelona, Spain : Architecture

“LA GARDUNYA” DEVELOPMENT IN BARCELONA’S HISTORICAL DISTRICT: “LA GARDUNYA” SQUARE URBANIZATION, “LA MASSANA” FINE ARTS CENTER, “LA GARDUNYA” HOUSING BLOCK AND “LA BOQUERIA” MARKET BACK FAÇADE’S RENOVATION BARCELONA 2009- Estudio Carme Pinós DESCRIPTION The project was born tracking the site. The housing block is the result of the searched perspectives related with the feeling the site transmits: from the Rambla, from the arcades on the Boqueria’s sides, from the Carme street’s passage exit… Each one of these perceptions has configured the volume without forgetting to be a part of the historical district housing buildings’ language. On the other hand, in the Massana School building we looked for singularity. In the housing we wanted to express domestic scale, whereas in the school we work with a larger scale. We want to avoid the school to be the main element in the square, and for that reason we place its main entrance in front of the future connection with the “Biblioteca de Cataluña” patio and we create a new public space between the Gardunya Square and the Canonge Colom square. The result is a dynamic building revolving around this main façade. The school’s interior space, open and unitary, is visible from all points of view. A terrace et the end of each corridor opens the building to the square, responding to the professors’ will to be able to have open spaces Although each façade of the school is explained in relationship to its context-always diverse- and despite the site’s fragmented geometry, we believe we have achieved to create a building with a strong unitary peresence. We did not want to define the Gardunya Square confronting the two main interventions. The housing block tries to create little public spaces which articulate themselves with the already existing ones; the school expresses itself towards the square with the will of singularity and dynamism. The treatment of the square emphasizes that idea: we create in the zone next to the flats an area with trees and, on the contrary, free the space in front of the school and give it a harder character. A line of trees of greater dimensions (already out of the limit of the parking below) smoothes the vision of the old hospital’s lateral façade. The school requests singularity and with this idea we cover it with ceramics of great dimensions resolved in two different types of solutions: lattice ceramics towards the Gardunya square and a ventilated facade with aluminum blinds towards the Hospital Street and the Cononge Colom Square. The housing block, integrated in its surroundings, will be plastered and smoothed with a treatment of paint and wooden blinds. The project for the market’ façade consists of providing a new façade to “La Boqueria” Market in substitution of the current one, considered as a back façade since it’s the loading-unloading point for the market. The project should also resolve this loading-unloading, which will be done from the parking underneath the square, so that it doesn’t interfere the continuity from the market’s passages to the new plaza. In order to solve the continuity from the existing roofs, and without competing with them, we change the height, lowering them to a plaza’s market scale. This allows us to overlap the new ones with the old ones, solving the problem with wind and water on rainy days. These new roofs move forward to the plaza allowing new shops to appear and substitute the ones affected by the new service lifts. We have chosen to change the rhythm from the existing porticos, currently giving a symmetric image focused in the office tower, with a new rhythm free from that symmetry, giving a more vital character that dissolves with the trees and the plaza’s circulations. Barcelona Architecture Barcelona Architects “LA GARDUNYA” DEVELOPMENT IN BARCELONA’S HISTORICAL DISTRICT: “LA GARDUNYA” SQUARE URBANIZATION, “LA MASSANA” FINE ARTS CENTER, “LA GARDUNYA” HOUSING BLOCK AND “LA BOQUERIA” MARKET BACK FAÇADE’S RENOVATION BARCELONA La Gardunya Development Barcelona - Credits Project’s name: “La Gardunya” development in Barcelona’s Historical District Location: Barcelona Client: Foment de Ciutat Vella, SA Dates: Competition: 2006. 1st Prize Basic Design Project: 2007 Main Design Project: 2008 Detail Design Project: ongoing Start of Construction: estimated 2009 Surface: Square: 4.500 m2 School: 10.700 m2 Housing: 6.200 m2 Market: 1.000 m2 Budget: Square (PEM): 975.341€ School (PEM): 10.411.000 € Housing (PEM): 5.114.542 € Market (PEM): 3.840.550 € Main architect: Carme Pinós Desplat Collaborators: Architects: Samuel Arriola, Roberto Carlos García Caballero, Inés Senghour, Holger Hennefarth, Cristóbal Martínez Calvo, Javier Jimenez Iniesta Structure: BOMA NB 35 Barcelona (market) Model: Miquel Lluch (competition) Roland Trauzold (market) Adrià Escolano (housing) Computer graphics: Alejandro Park (competition), Daniel Cano Photographs: Estudio Carme Pinós