La Model

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La Model

23,120 m2 plays an essential dimension within the humanist message it represents. It raises the question of how to move from seclusion to openness in all senses of the term: urbanistic, architectural, landscape, psychological and sensitive. In other words, we are looking for ways to make the living habitat coexist at all scales and for all types of environments: plant, animal and human.
Our team proposes an ambitious hypothesis, beyond a simple combination of well-fitted programs in an urban center known around the world. This visibility requires overcoming the immediate parameters of the virtuosity of the various experts invited to express themselves in the present contest and involves decompartmentalizing knowledge and skills for a horizon open to appropriations still imperceptible today.
We understand the space of the model as an opportunity to make a city. To transform the prison space into a new center for civic activity in the city. An open, transparent, permeable urban space full of life. That is why we believe in an intervention in 4 large blocks that begins with the construction of a large common green, a non-hierarchical and inclusive esplanade that can support all the city’s activities. The second step is to preserve the formal essence of the three buildings that make up La Model, through its structure and providing it with the appropriate uses for each building. The third is to balance the programs and relate them from: the relative/visual position of the environment, an organization from more public to more private and finally from noisier to quieter. The last step is to transform this intervention into a climate benchmark for the city, an urban climate shelter.
Location: Barcelona, Spain.
Status: Competition, 4th place
Program: 21.361 sqm
Structure: Esbuki Turró Estructuras SLP.
Facilities: PGI
Sustainability: Societat Orgànica.
Technical Support: Mario Barredo Arquitectura Técnica.
Client: BIMSA
Coauthors: Maio Architects + Catherine Mosbach