Vallcarca Cane Park Manifesto
The Vallcarca Cane Park is an urban farm aimed towards reconnecting the diverse set of communities that make up its surrounding neighborhood.
Located in an urban void north of the Ronda de Dalt, our structure is built using cane, a vernacular material, and traditional fabrication methods such as active bending.
The farm is primarily irrigated by the seasonal river that runs directly through the site. We have redirected its trajectory to create and optimize an interdependent relationship between water flow and direction, spatial program, and the final structural form.
Our goal is to develop a modular system that can be applied to other urban voids around Vallcarca, cultivating a communal, unified network of urban farms by way of water distribution.
Location
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Demolitions and Gentrification in the neightborhood
In 1976, when a Metropolitan General Plan (PGM) envisaged the redevelopment of part of Vallcarca. The project intended to demolish the Casc Antic in order to build a rapid transportation road.
In 2002, MPGM sought to demolish more houses and buildings than the original, extending to three new blocks along Avinguda Vallcarca.
By 2002, the houses in the Casc Antic were already devalued due to the affected status.
This demolition attracted investors seeking allocation to increase the height limits of buildings.
Many private houses were purchased by a public-private company created to enable redevelopment and by private real estate developers led by one of the major investors from Barcelona, Núñez and Navarro (NyN).
Since the beginning of 2010, NyN owns 80% of the private vacant lots in the Casc Antic de Vallcarca District.
Neighborhood Analysis
Connections Strategy
Solutions
- Engage the community | providing a space for dialogue
- Creating a visual narrative in the neighborhood using the urban voids
- Creating a network with other social spaces in casa Antic
- Redirecting- slowing down the water
- Use local materials
- Water management
- Enhancing the transportation network
- Creating connections between the educational units with an environmentally friendly agenda
Site analysis -Strategy
Materiality
Aruno Donax
Technic used: Active Bending
Active bending is the systemic use of elastic deformation
“Bending-active structures are structural systems that include curved beam or shell elements that base their geometry on the elastic deformation from an initially straight or planar configuration.”
Julian Lienhard:Bending-Active Structures Form-finding strategies using elastic deformation in static and kinetic systems and the structural potentials therein ,Institut für Tragkonstruktionen und Konstruktives Entwerfen Universitat Stuttgart
Bending-active structures: (elastic curve)
“..the behaviour of … bending-active structures do not fall into clearly predictable categories, their load bearing is largely dependent on the variety of topologies and geometrical expressions that may be generated. The geometry must be form-found, in this case simulating the elastic bending deformation, the form-finding result does not automatically define a structurally optimised geometry.” Bending follows an elastic curve, whereas the line of thrust in compression-only structures follows a catenary, or a parabolic curve, if loaded with equally distributed loads.
Program
Water Managment
Redistribution of the river
Form Finding
Final Form
Masterplan
Section
Hydroponic Farming Detail
Models
