Reclaiming the streets

In contemporary urban planning, we often focus on the best parts of a city. However, true transformation begins by identifying the most vulnerable areas. We have recently developed a parametric model in Grasshopper to analyse the Gràcia District in Barcelona, utilizing a worst-case scenario routing logic to pinpoint exactly where new Green Axes should be … Read more

NoiseXcape: Can Open Data Help Us Predict Urban Noise?

Introduction Noise is one of the most pervasive environmental stressors in cities. Long-term exposure has been linked to sleep disturbance, cardiovascular disease, reduced cognitive performance, and lower overall quality of life. Yet despite its importance, detailed noise maps are surprisingly difficult to obtain. Producing official noise maps requires measurements, traffic models, and considerable technical effort. … Read more

Urban Grid Transition: Mobility Strategies for Tourists and Locals’ Coexistence

Mobility when Tourism outgrows the City Barcelona is the 10th most visited city in the world. In 2024, it received approximately 15.6 million tourists – nearly nine times its resident population of 1.7 million. The issue is not tourism itself. Barcelona’s economy depends on it, and the city’s cultural richness is inseparable from its global … Read more

The Street As Living Pharmacy

What is an apothecary? The word comes from Greek. Apothēkē — it means storehouse. An apothecary is a place where you grow plants, prepare them, and share them as medicine. This tradition goes back thousands of years until the 19th century, when industrial pharmacy replaced it and the knowledge was lost. Today, we’re bringing it … Read more

NYC – Urban Land Use

Can we predict what kind of use does a city grid hosts — Commercial vs. Residential — from its built form, morphology, and proximity to other urban features? “Can we predict the land use of a space based on existing environmental information from official and unofficial sources?” What’s the sweet spot for a Machine Learning … Read more

Blue Edge

-A public seafront reclaimed from the port, built on what already exists. Blue Edge proposes transforming a former container terminal in the Port of Barcelona into the city’s first publicly accessible southern waterfront with the focus on the transport system that connects this site with the rest of the city The site sits directly south … Read more

Ciutat Nova Franca

Barcelona is a city that faces many physical limitations to it’s expansion as a metropolis-the mountains contain development within them and the sea borders its other side. For the past 15 years, it has been struggling with an immense wave of tourism that has displaced locals from affordable housing in popular areas and historic neighborhoods … Read more

Reconnecting the Port

Satellite imagery of Barcelona with words in black "Reconnecting the Port"

Re-envisioning Container City One of Barcelona’s most strategically located waterfront areas, the container port south of Montjuïc, remains largely disconnected from the inner city. As the city explores the possibility of relocating portions of its container operations in this speculative project and transforming this industrial landscape into a mixed-use district, mobility becomes a more pertinent … Read more

WING IT – Microclimatic Corridor For Non Humans

Microclimatic Corridor is a proposal for the transformation of Carrer de Rocafort into a climate shelter for non-human urban life. Responding to rising temperatures, biodiversity decline, and the urban heat island effect in Barcelona, the project extends the ecological and microclimatic performance of Jardins de Montserrat into the surrounding street network Climate change as a … Read more

Nature to Culture

What would happen if our landscapes got inspired in Culture, tradition and seasonality reflecting the core and inner Catalan escence? How could our landscapes being changed? but most important how could we do this? Introduction We began with a simple reframing: instead of adding nature on top of the streetscape, we asked how Catalan culture … Read more

HB02: Urban Congestion as Catalyst

Program Team Hyperbuilding 02 proposes a program-integrated transit hub that reorganizes fragmented mobility networks, shortens commute times, and anchors a high-density mixed-use urban core to improve accessibility and urban performance. The design concept for Hyperbuilding 02 begins with a problem: fragmented mobility networks that create inefficiency, congestion, and poor urban accessibility in high-density environments. Rather … Read more

Ecosystem Services in Lisbon

– Reimagining the Northern Green Corridor of Lisbon – Location The project site in Lisbon is strategically located within a dynamic urban fabric characterized by a mix of historic layers and contemporary development. Positioned between key mobility corridors and densely populated neighborhoods, the area experiences a high level of pedestrian and vehicular activity throughout the … Read more

EVERYDAY MOBILITY NETWORKS

Children’s journey to school, in Bosa Apogeo, Colombia INTRO Bogotá’s growth over the last two decades has been dramatic. The metropolitan area now holds close to 11.8 million inhabitants — a 51% increase in just 15 years. That growth has not been evenly distributed across the city. The city currently ranks 7th in the world … Read more