Barcelona, Spain
The following description is courtesy of Guallart Architects.
Valldaura Labs is a project to create a Self-Sufficient Habitat Laboratory promoted by the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia.
It’s located in the center of the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona, in the natural park of Collserola. The project is developed in a three-storey farmhouse built in 1888 that was found in very bad condition. The strategy was to build all the new spaces under and around the farmhouse to not have an impact on the landscape while at the same time providing new vitality to the complex.
The building includes rooms for students and teachers of the Master in IAAC Advanced Ecological Buildings on the upper floors.
On the ground floor, a dining room, and space for the staff has been faithfully rehabilitated to maintain the original structure.
The Green Fab Lab has been built under the plaza, using large-scale brick vaults and allowing the entry of natural light. The carpentry workshop and a biomass plant that feed energetically the building is situated next to it.
For the rehabilitation of the building, old brick and wood were recycled to give a material continuity to the complex. The windows have been manufactured and rehabilitated in the carpentry workshop of the laboratory.
An Energrid system was also designed for the building which is based on the Internet of Energy, developed from the distributed production of energy and the measurement of small units of consumption. Five different types of water deposits were identified (drinking, covers, squares, gray and black) with the intention to apply the principle of the Internet of Water.
But the project goes beyond the limits of the walls of the farmhouse: the goal is to develop a self-sufficient habitat that produces all the energy that is needed, which in turn produces a great part of the food, and which generates wood from the forest for the construction of structures and furniture, and biomass for the plant itself. In this way, a holistic vision is developed for the building and its environment.
description edited for clarity
More information
Valldaura website: www.valldaura.net
Conversation with Bjarke Ingels: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jz5TO9qxbSY&list=PLrJLvlOA1ReA8TeBu_NULSg7oIWIuAbn8&index=4&t=0s
Project Details
Name of the project: Valldaura Labs. Rehabilitation of a nineteenth-century farmhouse to convert it into a Research Center.
Project Location: Horta a Cerdanyola road, km 7.8. Cerdanyola del Valles Barcelona
Completion: September 2018
Project Authors: Guallart Architects. Vicente Guallart, María Díaz.
Collaborators: Fernando Meneses, Daniela Frogheri
Structures: Ionut Conseco
Energy: Oscar Aceves
Water: Jochen Scheerer
Information: Guillem Camprodon
Owner: Institute of Advanced Architecture of Catalonia
Photo credits: Adrià Goula
