This project is a direct interpretation of the ‘Landscape Archives Masterplan’, which was an earlier project in the semester in Barcelona. Here, one block is transformed from a largely underutilized urban space lacking pubic amenities, to one that is densely and purposefully designed to provide an amenity rich environment, which a generous and varied system of public spaces. This is achieved by reading the block’s forms, valuing their condition, potential and typological value, and intensifying its utilization through activating its heritage and developing its under built areas. The notion of ‘passageway’ is central to the project, and is interpreted as a threshold where sensations of containment, responsibility, and possibility change as one passes through space. With this in mind, the central programmatic feature, the nursery/kindergarten/and primary school, seeks to be situated in a manner that is embedded within the community. Passageways are utilized as degrees of centrality, access, and visibility, creating a porous patchwork of spaces that are more, or less, protected from the City’s, at times, monotonous grid and scale. By opening the interior of the block with a local street, plaza, and port-cochère, the project builds off the best examples of Barcelona’s pro-eixample renewal projects. This creates multiple urban scales within a uni-scale grid, and provides local spaces for communities to flourish.

The art rooms, playground, and gymnasium are examples of the dynamism of the project’s passageways, as they are accessible after hours as multi-age public amenities. It is believed that by sharing space, the activities of the community and the school can be synergetic, strengthening local and generational ties.

The small road and central plaza, Plaça de les Petites Glòries, are purely public spaces; however, their passageways at the block’s periphery create a more local scale, giving opportunity to properly provide frontage to the school, and respect the contained nature of the re-purposed industrial architectures. Additionally, parc Rec Comtal, located on the southeast edge of the block, acts as a mediator between scales, a buffer from the larger infrastructures and intensities of the Glories transportation hub (part of the ‘Landscape Archives’ masterplan), and a point of interest, guiding the public towards and into the varied spaces of the block.

The following diagrams of the project were produced during a week-long course on diagramming in architecture.