WHEEL PARK (PARC DE LA RODA)

LOCATION CORBERA DE LLOBREGAT, BARCELONA

DEVELOPER METROPOLITAN AREA OF BARCELONA

AREA18.000 M2

YEARS 2017 – ONGOING

EMBA ENRIC MASSIP-BOSCH, PRINCIPAL; PATRICIA GONZÀLEZ-MARGALEF (PROJECT DIRECTOR), PAOLA GAUDIO (ARCHITECTS), GERARD DE PRADO, CRISTINA VEGA (STUDENTS) RENDERS RICARD LOSTAO

GLÒRIES+ SQUARE RENEWAL

LOCATION BARCELONA, SPAIN DEVELOPER CITY COUNCIL OF BARCELONA AREA 45 HA  YEARS 2013

Glòries is the last large public area in need of development in Barcelona. It is first conceived in Ildefons Cerdà’s Eixample project, 1859, as the new downtown of Barcelona, right at the intersection of the three main avenues of Barcelona’s extension. Around that crossing several important administrative public buildings should have been erected, signifying a big shift of centrality of the new Barcelona. But it never happened.

On the contrary, Glòries has been ever since a terrain-vague crisscrossed by all sorts of mobility infrastructures at many different levels and in many different fashions, surrounded until recently by insignificant buildings with no metropolitan, or even local, allure whatsoever. This historical condition of Glòries as a permanent work-in-progress could very well be its main character trait. But now we are asked to fix its image and its condition.

In our proposal Glòries can have its own character, defined in positive for the first time and not as a mere subsidiary result. A character that is made of multiple ways of using this very complex urban space, allowing for simultaneous functions at different times of the day or night. In our proposal, Glòries becomes Glòries+, being at the same time park and piazza, local and metropolitan, static and dynamic.

Glòries+ connects and enlarges, reaching beyond the consolidated urban limits and generating an open order to make it comprehensible and resilient to allow for future changes in the city dynamics, as it always was. Because of its size, relative position and capability to connect with the rest of Barcelona, Glòries+ is destined to become an important center in citizens’ imaginary.

The regularity of the position of the vegetation contrasts with its diversity: different species found in Barcelona converge in Glòries+, differentiating areas and incorporating vegetation and alignments coming from the main avenues of Eixample: Diagonal, Gran Via and Meridiana.

Construction is located peripherally forming porous borders that allow Glòries+ to extend to the limits of the urban environment and achieve the longest possible visuals. Residence and public facilities are proposed as volumes of similar proportions to achieve maximum consistency and to value each possible orientation as an equal.

EMBA+TOPOTEK1 ENRIC MASSIP-BOSCH (PRINCIPAL); CORNELIA MEMM (PROJECT DIRECTOR); INMA RODRÍGUEZ, GIULIA PEREGGO, BET CASES, JON AJÁNGUIZ, PATRICIA GONZÀLEZ MARGALEF (EMBA ARCHITECTECTS) MODELS NAXO FARRERAS(GIRITI 5), EMBA RENDERS PLAYTIME