The aim of the project is to improve urban life and strengthen local relationships in the Provençals neighbourhood of Poblenou, enhancing the Perú and Paraguay streets, from Glòries to Rambla Prim.
The reasons that justify the choice of this area are that Provençals is the humblest neighbourhood of Poblenou; it is the focus of urban transformations in-progress in Plan 22@; and it has a densely populated residential area of high-rise blocks of flats on Gran Vía.
- Today the Peru-Paraguay axis is an unexploited street, but with a high capacity for improvement over a short space of time. It has a markedly asymmetrical section with housing and industrial buildings; it is a through road with large parking areas; it also has abundant trees and above all a dozen school and sports facilities, although pedestrian or bicycle travel is very complicated and quite unpleasant.
- The urgent needs detected are the empowerment of the neighbourhood and the articulation of the social entities of the neighbourhood; the improvement of the urban and environmental quality of a noisy public space with high atmospheric pollution, as well as the lack of activity on the ground floors, terraces and other meeting spaces. The presence of many fences and enclosures that prevent the creation of a more habitable space is undoubtedly a key issue.
In response to these problems, our proposal considers two main products/objectives for the Perú-Paraguay streets:
- The realisation of pilot micro-projects with built prototypes, focused on the design of a kit of standard solutions, applicable to the boundaries or fences of public buildings along that street, prioritising educational centres (schools, high schools, etc.), through the motto: from fence to urban threshold.
- An urban and social strategy with the implementation of an interactive digital platform for citizen cooperation and the creation of a collaborative social-digital neighbourhood network, through the motto: from neighbourhood to active and informed community.
The proposal suggests a strategic transformation and adaptation of the existing enclosure of a dozen schools and sports facilities, aligned along the same road, which will be developed along four lines of work:
- A comprehensive urban strategy.
- A community neighbourhood platform.
- A collaborative digital platform.
- Pilot interventions with construction of new enclosure prototypes.
The role that enclosures and walls play in the environmental quality of a street is key, which is why it is necessary to rethink the fences of public facilities as new spaces of opportunity, and to focus on the problem of the boundary as a place where things can happen or where it is simply pleasant to be, walk or stroll.
It is a project of liminal architecture, of rethinking the fence as a space for establishing new agreements between highly differentiated interiors and exteriors, of configuring schools with “active urban thresholds” that are more inhabitable, towards an educating city that goes “far beyond the classroom”.
The working team is made up of: City FOV Urban Lab + mayorga fontana arquitectura as coordinators and developers of the project (Miguel Mayorga, Maria Pia Fontana, Jorge Rodriguez) / BAU, College of Arts and Design Barcelona (Mariona Genís PhD, Jordi Planelles, Joan Maroto PhD) / Social Architecture (Itziar González, Sonsoles Miguel) and the Association Taula Eix Pere IV.
