DH Ecoenergy Plant #1

The District Heating network runs under the streets of the capital of Palencia, carrying hot water produced with renewable energies to buildings in a good part of the city. The Central, on the other hand, fulfills a technical function - hosting the hot water production processes - but at the same time, it has a markedly pedagogical vocation desired by the client: to make the transformation visible and support and allow its dissemination. This double condition requires the approach to the problem of industrial construction not only as a strictly functional matter.

Palencia's network is the first of a long series of similar projects that seeks to decarbonize a good part of the national urban geography, turning off fossil fuel heaters - diesel and gas, costly internationally sourced - to replace them with a clean network, fueled by renewable resources that will largely come from an improved management of Spanish forests. These simple elements of direct and effective architecture not only make up a particular solution - in this case for Palencia - but together they form an architectural system designed to provide similar but not identical responses to the upcoming DH Ecoenergías Thermal Power Plants, which will mark the the cold cities of Spain, helping to promote local employment, the management of forest biomass, the prevention of fires and the care of ecosystems, in addition to collaborating in a real way in the energy transformation of the country.

The architecture of the Central is symbolic, both in its geometry and in its materiality presenting the whole as an identity. Two main elements make up the building: a bathtub of heavy concrete and a light steel and plastic lantern - recyclable. The base serves as support for all machinery and establishes terrestrial connections with the outside and with the biomass silo located underground. Inside, the concrete base has a cover that becomes a perimeter walkway that surrounds all the machinery. The pill-shaped floor allows optimal circulation of visitors around the complete energy process. The steel and plastic lantern reinterpret economical solutions typical of industrial buildings to establish a significant connection with the community it serves: a small cathedral of energy. The facade of polycarbonate sheets - ribbed on three scales - is configured as a soft whitish veil supported on a delicate galvanized and painted steel wire structure.