University of Southern California School of Architecture
faculty:
contact:
Wei
Huang, MLA
Robert Harris
rharris@usc.edu
Parc del Clot is located in an industrial sector of the outskirt of Barcelona. The site of the park was once occupied by RENFE installations, which were partially demolished. Only some representative elements were left along with the perimeter. It’s a large, flat, urban, open space with approximately three hectares of land. It has a structured neighborhood with narrow streets and small, intensely built-up blocks super-imposed on the wide street of the Cerda area, the remains of railway of infrastructures and old county highways.
The architects of Parc del Clot are Dani Freixes and Vicente Miranda. Construction of the park is concentrated on the resolution of the perimeter with the objective of giving the neighborhood continuity. With this attitude, the pathway across the park is defined relative to the boundaries of he surrounding area. Several different function zones are included in the park. The astute design of the topography, sunk square, plants not only well protected the different areas for games and quiet places, but also kept the level and horizontal plane of the old mechanical workshops of RENFE and perpetuated the memory of the park’s previous motif.
Parc de L’espanya Industrial
Parc de L’espanya
Industrial is just next to the Estacio de Sants, which is the main railway
station of Barcelona. It’s located at the central placement of the
city. The character, playful and almost populist, expressed by the whole
park is determined by the condition of civic centrality. The park’s
architecture is to some extent the expression of a civic desire for a
liberating, recreational program.
The architects of the park are Luis Pena Ganchegui and Francesc Rius. The park is combined with a lot of functions – entrance, illumination, fountains – as well as the different conditioning factor of the surroundings. It’s location, topography and the surroundings determines that the connection with the neighborhood would be one of the main target for the design. The designer use different elements for each boundary – water, woodland, meadow, terrace- to make it become part of the city and the city life.
Middle-walk street
Street is one of the
main open spaces in the city. It is directly related to people’s
everyday life. Middle-walk street is a special type of it. It provides
more space and opportunity for people to walk out to the city and it makes
the street not only a mechanism for people to go from one place to another.
Rambla and L’avinguda de Gaudi in Barcelona are two samples for
such kind of middle-walk street. The former one is the best known landmark
of Barcelona. Meandering down from the Pl. de Catalunya to the Columbus
statue, filled with newspaper kiosks, flower and animal stalls, and all
sorts of artists, it is undoubtedly the place where everyone comes together,
both tourists and locals, from the most inconspicuous to the most exaggerated
representative of all sorts of urban tribes. In the case of Avinguda Gaudi,
the intersections of the Eixample Quarter are the all-out protagonists
and mark an itinerary of four different sections.
