Intermediary substances, tongues in the middle

Inhabited by Romans, Catalonia’s most important agricultural area until 1930’s, rising industrial pole at daytime, Llobregat river’s delta is a high complexity territory in the core of Barcelona Metropolitan Area. It’s a system with many variables, relating and generating tensions and synergies at different scales.
The Master Plan, developed by the Government of Catalonia, aims to increase the industrial and facilities vocation of the area and, in the meanwhile, pretends to protect and improve the agricultural heritage and the remaining wetlands.
The project assignment was to integrate a new industrial pole of 180.000m2 inside a 21hectares lot. The site is strategic for the biological connections among wetlands, is located in the transition areas between agricultural and urban and is neighbouring a huge facilities area, which includes el Pratt airport.
The proposal emulates the language of the site, made of soft slopes where minimal topographic changes generate different landscapes; due to the closeness of the phreatic level, different plants communities grow in a unique complex system.
The size of the surroundings agricultural plots defines the dimension of the industrial platforms.
Water management is made through a net of canals, as in agricultural system, based on a main watercourse, a wetland, and perpendicular canals, which are flooded in case of rain.
Vegetation depends on topography and closeness to water and phreatic level.
Planting strategy is to promote and accelerate ecological succession, starting with hydrophilic strong plants, generating microclimates, and planting more delicates species, while driest areas are cultivated with sclerophyll vegetation.