Design V-VI. Afternoon

Professors

Silvia Alonso de los Rios [R]      Antoni Barceló Baeza                    Maria Pilar Calderón Martinez    Cristóbal Fernández                      Gustau Gili Galfetti                        Carles Vinardell Puig

A-33, A-34, A-35,                            A-32, -41, A-42

Introduction

This course focuses on the reuse and extension of existing structures. Any transformation of an existing building oscillates between two extremes: demolition and the freezing of the existing fabric. It is within this uncertain territory that the architect must decide which layers are to be preserved and how many are to be added. Reuse engages with the three dimensions of sustainability: environmental, economic and, especially, social, because architecture supports intangible values such as memory, identity and dignity which, precisely because they cannot be quantified, tend to fall outside regulations and disappear within a society driven by immediacy.

In reuse, a new programme colonises a tectonic framework that responds to a different logic, and from the encounter between these two realities emerges a hybrid organism in which the new finds its place within the old. Learning to design through this typological hybridisation requires recognising that structure tends to remain and understanding flexibility not as ease of reconfiguration, but as the capacity to accommodate different uses without being essentially modified. The conflict between the existing structure and the programme thus becomes the driving force behind a critical reassessment of both, in which updating identity-defining elements and employing non-intrusive technologies form part of a strategy to extend the building’s life across several cycles of use.

The exercise proposes transforming La Igualadina Cotonera, a former spinning mill protected as an Asset of National Cultural Interest due to the authenticity of its timber structure, into the heart of a public school for textile and leather trades in Igualada, including an auditorium, exhibition space and business incubator. Together with the Celler del Sindicat, the Farinera Grifé and the Fontanellas i Martí industrial sheds, the project must create a cohesive complex that brings together four moments in Igualada’s industrial history and connects the historic centre with the Rec neighbourhood and the future Anoia river park, embracing the tension between the open, unobstructed character that is to be preserved and the compartmentalisation required by the programme.

Program

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