Neuer Hauptsitz für die Fakultät für Nautische Studien von Barcelona / Nueva sede de la Facultad de Náutica de Barcelona , Barcelona/ Spanien

Verfahrensart
Nicht offener Wettbewerb

Wettbewerbsaufgabe
Eingeschränkter Projektwettbewerb für die Vergabe von Projektierungs- und Bauleitungsleistungen für den neuen Sitz der Nautischen Fakultät von Barcelona und des Inkubators zur Förderung des Unternehmertums im Ausbildungs- und Technologieknotenpunkt des nautischen Sektors in der Nova Bocana des Hafens von Barcelona, im Stadtteil Ciutat Vella von Barcelona.

Tarea del concurso
Concurso de proyectos restringido para la contratación de los servicios de redacción del proyecto y dirección de los obras de la nueva sede de la Facultad de Náutica de Barcelona e incubadora para el fomento del emprendimiento, en el nodo formativo y tecnológico de la náutica, en la «Nova Bocana» del puerto de Barcelona, en el distrito de Ciutat Vella de Barcelona.

Press release by Mestres Wåge, 21 October 2021
MESTRES WÅGE INTERNATIONAL PRACTICE WINS THE COMPETITION TO DESIGN A NEW TRAINING AND TECHNOLOGY NODE FOR THE NAUTICAL SECTOR IN BARCELONA

The international architecture studio Mestres Wåge is to design the future training and technology node for the nautical sector in Barcelona. The project, presented last April, stands out for its relationship with the environment, permeability and appropriation of public space, and coherence of its functional arrangement.

The new facility responds to the current local government’s strategic plan for the Barcelona coastline: opening up the city to the sea by recovering public space, and promoting the blue economy, which encompasses the various economic sectors related to the marine environment, promoting sectors other than tourism.

Barcelona 21 October_ Barcelona City Council, in the form of a tender organized by the municipal company BIMSA and in the framework of interventions carried out to renovate the urban coastline and promote the blue economy, held a restricted competition to design the nautical training and technology node in the city of Barcelona.

The proposal submitted by the international practice Mestres Wåge, based in Barcelona and Oslo, won the two-round competition, with the participation of 50 practices with renowned trajectories, including names such as Sergison Bates Architects, Estudio Carme Pinós, BAAS, DATAAE and Mario Corea Arquitectura, among others. Of the ten works that went on to the second phase, Mestres Wåge’s project stood out for its high architectural and urbanistic quality, in the words of the jury. The jury further emphasised the intelligent layout of uses and the structural system proposed, as well as its permeability and its capacity to appropriate public space.

The new build covers 13,689 square metres above grade, distributed almost equally between the Nautical Studies Faculty of the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC) and an incubator for emerging companies with a technological component related to the blue economy, with economic activity linked to the sea. The innovative volume will be located on the North Side of the port entrance and stand five storeys high with a basement floor.

The architectural and urbanistic quality of the design
The future building, completion of which is scheduled for 2026, will form part of the amenities in the urban planning of the North Side, the most recent area of the port of Barcelona. The new nautical node, amid reflections of glass architecture, is to be built as a command bridge for this area, with panoramic views of the maritime environment. The proposal breaks with the iconic and monolithic trends of the adjoining container buildings and proposes to empower the new urban public space using various strategies, it being the volumetric composition and alterations in the façade that allow the building to be perceived with different scales and nuances. In this way, perception of the new public space is enriched by altering the skyline and breaking through the dominant impermeabilities by generating visuals of warm, vitalized interiors. Specifically, in its modulation, transparencies and ceramic cladding, the main façade on Passeig de Joan de Borbó complements the sides that show off the configuration of the structural portico, and provides rhythm and order, both inside and out. At the same time, the interplay of full and empty space, the permeability, the strategic location of the approaches and the showcasing of the hydrodynamic experimentation channel blur physical boundaries and achieve a fluid relationship between interior and exterior.

Quality of the interior spaces and layout of uses
Understood as a modern nautical agora, the new space, designed as a meeting point for students, entrepreneurs, business and professionals, is industrial in character, the product of the conditioning factors imposed by its demanding innovation spaces.

In terms of uses, the ground floor, which can be accessed from both south and north, and both sides, contains the most public parts of the brief, all shared: the auditorium, the multipurpose hall, the restaurant, the dining room and the rest area. This open layout invites citizens in and offers users great flexibility, allowing for events with varying degrees of privacy without interfering with day-to-day use of the facility. Starting in this central ground-floor space, two atriums perforate all the floors of the building, regulating climate and lighting. The south atrium, which offers users a spectacular view of the city with the port and Montjuïc in the foreground, reaches the west façade, providing access to each floor. This is also where the staircase and the lift shaft are located. The most public brief of each floor is laid out between the two courtyards.

The second atrium, between two of the structural porticoes, generates a terrace on the fourth floor for internal use by users of Barcelona Activa, which connects with its dining room and offers views of the city. The exclusive Barcelona Activa area occupies the top two floors of the building. In turn, the working area, the blue economy coworking space and the information point are laid out on the third floor with the integrated simulation centre. The classrooms and laboratories of the UPC, the part of the brief with the highest density, occupy the first and second floors. The basement houses the hydrodynamic experimentation channel, the wind tunnel, the machinery and shipbuilding laboratories, and parts of the internal management area.

About MestresWåge Arquitectes
Based in Barcelona and Oslo, Mestres Wåge is an international architecture studio set up in 2005 by Maria Mestres and Magnus Wåge. Its work focuses on architectural synthesis as a tool to respond to complex situations, with the aim of creating an open, versatile, sensitive architecture that is capable of taking its place by addressing architecture and urban planning as a single shared discipline.

The practice focuses mainly on public work and housing, which it regards as a container for the reinforcement of relational fabric in various areas of people’s lives.

It has won numerous national and international competitions, including the new Nautical Node in Barcelona; Flytårnet station on Oslo’s new metro line; Kunstsilo Museum and the Cultural School in Kristiansand; and Førde Town Hall and square, all in Norway. With the latter project, the practice was runner-up in the FAD International and the Norwegian Arkitekturprisen awards.

www.mestreswage.com