1080m

In the industrial parks of the cities of the metropolitan area of Barcelona, companies are locating in those that are closest to the infrastructure hubs. The Castellar del Vallés industrial park, which is far from these hubs, is at a competitive disadvantage. A new infrastructure will help to reprogram and reconfigure this deteriorated environment.

Industrial parks have been built on the basis of formal tools where the value of land and the logistics associated with the production of goods prevail. The result is a non-place, a homogeneous and anonymous space incapable of constructing common references for a population. The singular and the urban exception are introduced in a disruptive way as a strategy to create new spatial qualities, seeking to generate a potentially significant place in contrast to the isotropy and lack of hierarchy that characterise industrial parks. The project is placed in a sequence of publicly owned plots. Its position is strategic within the city as it connects it lengthwise with the natural spaces that surround it and crosswise it is situated in the centre of the industrial zone. It is by defining a boundary, understood not as an unbreachable wall but as a topological condition, that a new site appears. It is a centre, but also an itinerary. The architecture itself, used as a design tool, both closes and integrates this space with the potential to welcome the community. The project aims to create a new urban centrality with a high degree of diversity of uses, promoting hybridisation between the different productive sectors. A sequence of structural frames builds the infrastructure that supports the different programs. Between the support beams, tubes conduct the energy obtained through the waste heat from the furnaces of a glass factory. Below is a generic space. In its lack of definition, it is capable of accommodating many different types of uses, providing a place for the different companies to develop their activities. The upper part of the building contains public programs whose form is used as an urban landmark. A small auditorium, a fire station with a gymnasium, a car park, a gardening school and a service station for trucks are the programs that complete the intervention. The project involves different actors, so it is planned to be built in different phases. The aim is to build a space for the community through industry, seeking to create the conditions to turn the industrial park into a constituent part of the city.