Other Barcelonas: essays and attempts on a possible city

Our city does not escape the demands imposed by climate change, with increasingly frequent tropical nights, torrential rains, urban flooding, rising sea levels, and a long list of challenges that need to be confronted decisively.
Faced with such a scenario, the question arises: Is it possible to design a resilient city that can respond to the effects of the current climatic emergency, using the memory and elements of Barcelona’s original territory and geography to reincorporate the urban metabolism into the dynamics of its environment?
The work is based on studies of the water cycle and flooding, two key elements to be taken into account in order to imagine a city that is not only possible, but necessary, and asks: How is it possible that a territory structured by its rivers and streams is now incapable of managing water coherently and efficiently? Would it not be possible to recover this structure, and thus propose a resilient city model that makes use of the elements that are the genesis of its existence, and thus reweave the relationships between the city and its territory?
Barcelona and its ancient streams, especially the Riera d’Horta, are the case study proposed to show that if our cities are defied by these questions, and the current climate challenge, landscape is the answer.a