City Metropolitana

  • L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, Spain
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A new business district emerges on a site adjacent to the Barcelona fairgrounds between the airport and the city: a self-contained urban unit with its own microclimate, a “zone of activity” that will be an oasis on what is now disordered and arid terrain. The hotel, the conference centre and all of the offices are organized around an “umbrella” roof that covers a dynamic garden of shadow and light. The office facades open completely onto this gigantic atrium of green. The conference centre, a “Fuller-esque” dome of panels with varying opacities, is conceived with meeting facilities that open onto terraces protected from the wind and sun. These terraces share characteristics with the roof deck of the hotel, where one finds the restaurant, a bar and a swimming pool: a different way of working and living, of engaging in professional life, in the Barcelona climate.

 

A new business and meeting point in between the airport and the city, the project extends the site of Barcelona fair. Amid an arid and disorganized site, the proposition is to construct an entirely synthetic urban unit – a “zone of activity” – with its own climate, and its own oasis.

 

The offices, hotel, and congress centre are organized around an “umbrella”, an exuberant garden of shadows and lights.

 

The office facades open completely onto this gigantic atrium of vegetation.

 

The congress centre – a bubble made of various translucencies, develops into meeting places that open onto terraces, protected from the wind and the sun. These terraces mirror the open-air environments of the hotel restaurant, bar, and pool.

 

This zone of various activities offers another way for professional encounters to exist under the climate of Barcelona.

 

 

Jean Nouvel