- Site-specific cases
In Barcelona, the fields of El Prat de Llobregat and the Delta Biosphere Reserve remain the last stronghold where nature and the traditional work of the land resist the expansive and devouring character of industry and logistics. The project is based on a path that goes through different sites. The objective was to generate a combination of three time spans by making a tribute to El Prat de Llobregat's past, linking the visitor to the present landscape and proposing a reflection on the future of the area. The proposal provides the place with new life through a completely sustainable intervention which brings hope for change.
The aim is to raise awareness on the possibility to design using traditional methods of construction and local resources in order to contribute to a much more sustainable approach to landscape architecture. It also raises awareness on the opportunities that neglected territories can offer by becoming experiences and bringing more green areas to cities.
This plan shows on one side the path of the intervention and how it goes thorughout the whole area by the abandoned fields, the ruin, the desolated beach in front of the industry and finally an empty land in the natural reserve area that faces completely the industrial area.
Aproximate beginning of the path. Wooden walkway that runs through abandoned crop fields, accompanying the walker with a water channel on the side. This image shows one of the resting areas covered with wattle, a natural resource for construction widely used by the farmers in the area also as a tribute to them and their job. The walkway follows the shape of the old crops that existed in the past, interpreted by old satellite images and plans.
Inside the ruin, an important intervention was to recreate subtly with iron sticks the volumes of the indoor spaces; the rooms where families lived, in relation to the marks in the floor where plants grow.
Final part of the path. Fences made out of wattle as an honour to the local resource and the traditional method of construction create a kind of labyrinth that reaches the final viewpoint.
After having experienced the memories of the past of the area that have been erased, the final statement is a high viewpoint that forces the visitor to look at the invasive industrialization that is in front and threatens the natural areas. It is constructed with wattle (as a tribute to primitive architecture) and an iron structure and is inspired in the bird viewpoints (walls with windows) of the natural park that is close to the area.
