Carla Sicilia Matas
Portfolio - Architect
Mojarse en el Besós
Subject: Final Academic Project
Jury: Jaime Coll
Alicia Huguet
Jordi Pagès
Miguel Roldán
Academic year: 2012 - 2013
SKIPPING THE RIVER (MOJARSE EN EL BESÓS)
LOCATION AND PROGRAM
The location: a part of the territory that communicates with the city by public and private transport, but visually detached from the immediate surroundings. With the design of a pedestrian path the location is restored as it gets in contact with the immediate environment.
The program: aiming to restore a deteriorated area and, at the same time, give response to a variety of uses related to the environment, it is decided to create an interpretation center and a temporary residence building. This will give the site a 24-hour use, which will make marginality decrease and win prominence in front of the actual main industrial use.
This diversity created inside an unique territory provides the right context to make exchange of information and knowledge increase.
A system of collection, storage and recycling of rainwater is created, and works like a seed for the development of the project, which emerges from the relationship between architecture and living organisms. This is what unifies the program with the location it is placed in.
This system allows the creation of a repeating structure, flexible growth, that is not limited or closed. For its qualities, if the project had to grow, it would do so by following the same rules.
The site is placed in the delta of the river Besós.
There is a fluvial park 5km long 150m wide that is accessible to people. However, the last 450m, this means the delta, is a wild reforested non accessible part of the river, with lots of different species of birds.
The study of the place consists on discern which waters are more polluted and which are less polluted, and also from where the contamination comes from.
In this plan we can see, in grayscale, the level of contamination, and in colors the causes of it. Once that I have seen the contradiction between the bad condition of the water and the increasing preoccupation about sustainability, I decide to create an interpretation center directly related to the delta.
LOCATION. WHAT EXISTS.
STEPS
The area is revalued by creating a public path that goes from the level crossing to the north beach of Barcelona.
Like a spine, the private program branches on both sides of the public path.
The interpretation center consists of a laboratory (private) and a museum (public).
The laboratory is placed the nearest to the natural area of the delta and facing the main street.
The temporary housing are located in the pine forest, so even having relation to the rest of the project the building is protected for greater comfort of the users.
It is in the leap where the “getting in touch with the place” becomes clearer.
The “bridge-observatory” overpasses the delta allowing the observer to see live all those things they have already studied and learnt in the other buildings, like the lab or the museum
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PRODUCTION PROCESS OF MODEL 1/250
DETAILS
SITE PLAN & PLANS 1/250
STRUCTURE
LIGHT HIGHER TENSILE STRUCTURE
A tensile strength central steel ring is at the top of the stairwell and services. In this way a structure that works as a tent subjected by a central mast is obtained.
The outer ring is made of concrete and works under compression.
The height difference between the two rings is not much, so that the cables, on arrival at the outer ring, are practically horizontal. This causes that most of the load of the deck is absorbed by the central core and, therefore, the outer ring can be supported on separated thin columns. The cables support very thin slabs of concrete (5 cm thick) trapezoidal shape. To ensure the monolithic nature of the cover the joints between the slabs and the cables are filled with mortar.
Tent structures respond to two structural models.
Those tents that cover the buildings adapting themselves to its radial structures are held by a central mast and edge tensors. In the case of the vertical cores mast has a ring of reduced dimensions located above the perimeter tensors. For collection patios central ring is lower than the perimeter tensors.
The tents covering the walks are subject to external masts and perimeter tensors, without any center subjection point.
This makes that the final shape of the tent structure responds to the program below.
HEAVY LOWER CONCRETE STRUCTURE
Reinforced concrete flat slab structure and concrete columns. To roughly measure this structure the following calculation is held:
slab thickness=span/34-40
the biggest span in any direction makes 10m, so 10/34=0.294m≈0.3m. This means the slab will be 30cm thick.
At points in which, for requirements of the project, the span is bigger than 10m, the slab is reinforced with a hanging beam. In the same way all the slab perimeter is reinforced with an edge beam of 40x70cm.
Central core of solid reinforced concrete, used as an horizontal brace of the entire system.
45cm diameter piles with a 72T ultimate load. Bracing is done through an under-pressure concrete slab, 60cm thick, which increases in encounters with the piles.
Reinforced concrete diaphragm walls made in-situ, with a reinforcement cage size 70x55cm.
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ENERGETIC EFFICIENCY