LA MODEL, Barcelona reopens its former prison

SPRING 2020 574 Studio Design Portfolio Prof. Sara Bartumeus

LA MODEL_Barcelona opens its former prison Illinois School of Architecture FAA/UIUC

FOREWORD - Director, Illinois School of Architecture

This year, the Illinois School of Architecture is celebrating the 50th Anniversary of its international programs, previously in Paris and now in Barcelona. Earlier in the semester, I had the privilege of visiting our faculty and students in the Ciudad Condal, arguably one of the finest collective reservoirs of art, design culture and architecture to study, explore and experience the virtues of urban life. I thoroughly enjoyed walking around the vast Eixample grid and marveling at the efficacy through which it integrated existing fabrics like Gracia, Sarriá, Sant Gervasi, or the historic Barri Gotic. Coincidently, we traversed along the studio’s chosen site of La Model prison on more than one occasion, noticing how the impressive architectural object had been engulfed by the repetitive octagonal blocks.

Interestingly, both our School and the Plan Cerdá have their origins on the same decade, as the US survived a Civil War, Italy was unified as a country and Paris hosted its second International Exhibition. By then, London had grown into a metropolis of 3 million people, almost quadrupling its population from the city that experienced Jeremy Bentham’s development of the pannomion and the panopticon. The latter would transform prison design around the world and was certainly a precedent to Barcelona’s La Model, which was built at the time Antoni Gaudí took over the design and construction of the Sagrada Familia, also destined to become an architectural object swallowed by the Eixample’s grid.

On this side of the Atlantic, that period witnessed how the University of Illinois hired its first alumnus, Nathan Ricker, as the inaugural Director of the School of Architecture. The Windy City was reborn from the ashes of the Great Chicago Fire through the remarkable work of stellar architects such as Louis Sullivan, Daniel Burnham and Frank Lloyd Wright. The 1893 World’s Columbian Exhibition proposed a Ferris Wheel to outshine Paris’ Eiffel Tower. Its lone remaining building, the current Museum of Science and Industry, is a contemporary of La Model. As an architect and an urbanist, I am glad both are still standing through the new millennium.

One hundred and fifty years later, our School of Architecture offers resident studios in Chicago and Barcelona, so it is not uncommon to find models in our desks and drawings in our walls showing those magnificent urban morphologies bordering the

Mediterranean Sea and Lake Michigan. During Midterm reviews, I walked into the gallery to find such drawings and models in Sara Bartumeus’ studio. Later in the semester, I participated on the Final Review and discussed some of the proposals along Cruz García and Nathalie Frankowski from wai think tank. The work displayed a profound understanding of place and scale, redeploying the site’s memory to better serve the city’s current desires. It was no surprise that one of its projects was unanimously selected to receive the top honor in our Graduate Design Awards.

Last week, we were informed that Bryan J. Samuel and Shweta Krishnan had also won the prestigious 2020 Chicago Award in Architecture. Their strikingly mature proposal was selected among 25 entries from the Illinois Institute of Technology, the University of Illinois-Chicago, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign. In 2020, a project in Barcelona had triumphed in Chicago.

I am proud of the exemplary quality produced in this studio, the academic rigor demonstrated by its professor and the commitment exhibited by the students during a very challenging semester. As Director of the School, that is all one can ask for. Congratulations to all!

Francisco Javier Rodríguez-Suárez, FAIA Director and Clayton T. Miers Endowed Chair ACSA Distinguished Professor University of Illinois School of Architecture

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FOREWORD - Ariadna Miquel Amengual

La Model Prison was built at the end of the 19th century, when Barcelona was experiencing a physical and demographic expansion that consolidated it as an industrial city, and when the Eixample was equipped with large pieces of public facilities and public spaces representative of the new urban scale. Most were located in what were then the city limits.

The prison was quickly swallowed up by the urban fabric, and the need to move the penitentiary to a place further away from the central city became apparent.

Its closure and relocation was announced in the 1960s, and it was not until the summer of 2017 that La Model Prison stopped taking in the last prisoner and became municipal property.

From the very beginning, the City Council wanted to open the prison to the city, while also opening up an intense debate with neighborhood residents, which revolved around two radically opposite ideas: the demolition of the prison to build a large green space, or its maximum preservation. At the same time, the innitiative was based on a political commitment achieved in 2009, which destined the space to all the facilities hitherto lacking in the neighborhood.

between three key forces in the definition of a city: political premises, technical criteria, and neighborhood demands.

Accompanying political decisions and balancing neighborhood demands with a solid architectural foundation in long-term projects such as La Model is key to ensuring their continuity. The technical work carried out by architects in the administration, through the development of the Master Plan and previous work; by professional architects, through competitions and debates; and by architecture schools, with exercises as interesting and suggestive as those in this publication, all three areas contribute in providing content and solidity to projects as important to the city as the transformation of La Model Prison.

- Ariadna Miquel Amengual Cap de Prospectiva | Head of Foresight Model Urbà. Ecologia Urbana | Urban Model. Urban Ecology Ajuntament de Barcelona | City of Barcelona

Resulting from political demands, this complex neighborhood debate, and the technical knowledge of the site and its surroundings, the 2019 Master Plan was drafted, making green space, heritage and facilities compatible. Subsequently, the competition for La Model project placed the challenge in the hands of architects, to find the team best suited to solve this complex dead end.

It has been almost 50 years of neighborhood demands, promises and unfulfilled expectations. Today, we have before us a unique opportunity to make a project that makes city, a unique piece that can help alleviate the deficits of a very dense neighborhood, with a shortage of green spaces and neighborhood facilities, an enclousure with a high load of historical memory, which speaks of a traumatic recent past that would best be not forgotten.

La Model Transformation Project is a good example of the always difficult balance

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT - Prof. Bartumeus

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT - Class of ARCH 574 E3, Spring 2020

To the reviewers...

To the students...

To Prof. Bartumeus and the Reviewers...

I would like to express my sincere gratitude to our guest reviewers Don McKay (Principal Sheehan, Nagle, Hartray Architects) and Cruz García & Nathalie Frankowski (WAI Architecture ThinkTank and Ann Kalla Professors at CMU) and to our in-house reviewers Heather Grossman (PhD. Teaching Assistant Professor, Architectural History) and Paul Armstrong (Associate Professor Emeritus) for their contribution to a successful pedagogical experience. Their invaluable feedback helped the students understand the many layers of complexity the project entailed, and it enriched their approaches and design solutions.

First and foremost, I would like to express my gratitude to the students for taking this pedagogical journey, not exempt of pitfalls and difficulties, with me. The urban project studios I usually teach already deal with complexity at different scales and imply not just a non-linear design journey but a spiral one, that goes from the urban scale to the architectural scale until the human scale. This semester, the COVID-19 pandemic added other doses of complexity to the ones already implicit in the integrative approach to urban, architecture and landscape design entailed in my studios, when the studio migrated to online and we all had to find other ways to teach, learn and perform.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank Prof. Bartumeus for introducing us to this complex and interesting project that gave us a chance to explore the urban design in a vibrant city like Barcelona. In the age of excess, architectural projects that look at adaptive re-use of abandoned buildings are indeed the need of the hour. The prison also represents a painful heritage of the city and the project allowed us to explore ways of helping the community redefine what La Model can mean to the city.

During midterms, the students were excited and inspired by the interesting reflection, even passionate discussion on preservation, transformation and memory brought forth by the project presentations. The reviewers’ thoughtful feedback at the time was crucial to build up the students’ motivation to move their projects forward despite the challenging situation.

It was immensely rewarding for the studio to have them back on board, with the addition of Francisco Rodriguez, the Director of the Illinois School of Architecture, for our Final reviews. Despite the online setting of Finals, our expectations were not let down, as we were able to build an engaging conversation on our midterm reflection.

The students and I felt that their ideas and critique recognised the hard work, and the complexity that the La Model project deserved.

Even though the situation was far from ideal, and each of us, students and professor, had our own special unique situations to deal with in these challenging times, you kept both the motivation (yours and mine!) and the project standards up to accomplish and be at finals where we all had imagined we could be after midterms, when we had to separate.

Thus, thank you for accepting the challenge and for joining me from your lonely or crowded confinements, from your College apartments in Campustown or from your teen (High School) rooms at family homes in the Chicago Suburbs or in Corea. Our synchronized sessions during usual studio times and your willingness to engage with your classmates made possible not only keeping the rigor and the pace needed in the design process, but maintaining the collaborative and collective nature that our design work deserves.

Despite the rapidly changing and immensely challenging circumstances presented by Covid-19, Prof. Bartumeus relentlessly helped us navigate the studio - both on campus and online. We are immensely thankful for her perseverance and faith in our efforts. We would also like to extend our heartfelt gratitude to the reviewers and the Director of the school, who guided us during the mid-reviews and provided valuable feedback. In addition, we would like to thank a few important contributors, who provided us with the resources to understand Barcelona and La Model remotely Victor Font, Ariadna Miquel and the City of Barcelona, Brenda Roqueta student of ETSAV Barcelona and Renau Bartumeus Arquitectes.

Thank you Antonia, Josh, Ushma, Sterlee, Mario, Jacobs, Helena, Hallie, Bryan and Shweta (who deserves my very special thanks for making this publication possible) for trusting my guidance and for your hard work. This publication is the testimony of your rigor and perseverance, of your resilience and endurance.

Our society and our environments, our future habitats, are in need of integral and committed designers as you.

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CONTENTS

1

About the Studio - Prof.

Sara Bartumeus

2

5

8

3

6

9

Barcelona

Nova Esquerra Eixample and La Model

4

La Model

The Competition

Precedent Study

7

Studio Projects

Conclusions

The Studio

ABOUT THE STUDIO

The graduate design studio ‘BARCELONA OPENS ITS FORMER PRISON_ LA MODEL’ tackles relevant urban design and heritage questions that are now on the table in Barcelona regarding its former prison, La Model.

Based on a recent competition (yet to be failed), the studio looks at transforming one of the largest pieces of historic architecture in the iconic Eixample. Located in the city center, Eixample is one of the densest districts in Barcelona. The studio tackles the challenges of turning the enclosed site into an open green space with public facilities–residential, educational, and cultural buildings–while preserving the heritage and historical value of the complex.

The students have worked (through distance) in Barcelona. While this is not the same as a physical and sensory experience of the site, I have tried to fill this gap with my knowledge of the city, which, beyond being my hometown, is the focus of most of my design work and research interest. In fact, I was recently commissioned by the City for an Urban Landscape Study on the New Left Eixample neighborhood, where La Model is sited. They have been exposed to the latest design questions that arose in the city, where designers and planners have been challenged to transform the prison in two bounded blocks of the Cerda grid, into a new community hub with public housing, facilities, and green space. How can we transform the former prison into a vital and vibrant place integrated into the city’s fabric without uprooting it from the citizen’s memory?

Opening this debate, the City of Barcelona not only looks to fill gaps in city life and turn this city back around but seeks to satisfy the needs of the neighbors on green space, social facilities, and public housing. Multiple participatory processes and a Plan for La Model have compiled all the citizens’ demands expressed as art on the prison’s wall.

This is why the focus of the studio is not only on architectural preservation and adaptive reuse but also on urban renovation, on preserving architectural heritage and collective memory, as well as introducing new forms of urban space, urban ecology, and collective habitation.

The prison’s panoptic typology, its architectural heritage, and the dark political and humanitarian past of the place, have simultaneously become the incentives and constraints to give La Model a second life and integrate the walled facility in the city fabric and into the city’s life.

With the specific goal to better articulate the penitentiary precinct in its immediate context as part of the city’s physical and social fabric, the studio has also reflected on broader questions of ‘monument’, its memory, and the city. In search of creating a new vibrant urban space that can act like a common place, and a green park, a critical fragment of the potential ecological eastern corridor in the city, the student’s design solutions implement a multifunctional program while preserving the memory of the place and its panoptic condition. For this reason, the students carefully looked at the ground floor of the proposals and its interface with the city, to design the activity and the materiality of this new intersection.

The projects displayed in this publication have dealt with the complex articulation of the activities, facilities and green spaces demanded in the participatory processes, designing a new urban landscape and what I like to call urban architecture - one that creates a place, that gives something back to the city.

- Prof. Sara Bartumeus

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LA MODEL & BARCELONA

Location of La Model within the city of Barcelona today. Source: Google Maps

Cartography of Barcelona,1930-40, by Vicenç Martorell

UNDERSTANDING THE CITY FABRIC Location and grain.

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Cartography 1_The New Left of the Eixample is the neighborhood at the west end of the Eixample district. Important avenues limit the neighborhood and become both borders and hinges between different fabrics and districts. These big axes are wide avenues with tall buildings.

Their intersections configure singular, yet not very defined urban spaces. We could see La Model as part of one of these urban nodes.

Cartography 2_The map outlines the lack of void in a neighborhood with a tight, dense fabric and population. It also points out at the heterogeneous distribution of the empty space, concentrated in a few superblocks, such as the Joan Miro Park, the Escola Industrial and La Model. Besides this bigger concentration of open space at the larger Cerda blocks at the city scale, the rest are interior courtyards at the scale of blocks or interstitial spaces, patios, and thoroughfares at the architectural scale.

NOVA ESQUERRA DE L’EIXAMPLE AND LA MODEL

Cartography: Gateways and avenues. Boundaries and connexions. Estudi de Paisatge: Nova Esquerra de l’Eixample. Source: Renau Bartumeus Arquitectes

Cartography: The porosity of the fabric. Estudi de Paisatge: Nova Esquerra de l’Eixample. Source: Renau Bartumeus Arquitectes

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NOVA ESQUERRA DE L’EIXAMPLE AND LA MODEL

The neighborhood The former prison, our site, is located across two blocks of the iconic Eixample, the central and the denser district in the city.Specifically, La Model is located in the ‘New left of the Eixample’ neighborhood. The adjective new echoes the fact that this was the last part of the Eixample gridded Extension Plan–by Ildefons Cerda (1859)–to be urbanized and built.

Before that, it was to this edge that the city exported all the undesirable and huge facilities that the central city did not want: such as the Slaughterhouse (today Joan Miro Park), the train Station and all the uncomfortable activities around it, the Hospital (Clinic), the textile industry (today the Escola Industrial, a university facility)…and, nonetheless, the prison (La Model). All these facilities break the uniform gridded pattern of the Cerda blocks to form super-blocks by combining 4-Cerda blocks (Joan Miro Park and Escola Industrial) and 2-Cerda blocks (Hospital Clinic and La Model).

Bounded by important avenues, and with its proximity to the main city train Station (Sants) and important touristic and facility areas: such as the Montjuic mountain (transformed for the International Exposition in 1929 and for the Olympics in 92), the neighborhood can be understood today as the eastern city gateway instead of the city edge it used to be.

The studio’s model tries to reflect the neighborhood’s edge condition by representing the differences in the mosaic of the city, where the continuous grid of Eixample encounters other urban fabrics.

Public space and facilities. Estudi de Paisatge: Nova Esquerra de l’Eixample. Source: Renau Bartumeus Arquitectes

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The Panopticon

LA MODEL The Administration building

The panoptic and the history of the building La Model, as its name in Spanish indicates, the ‘Example’, the “Model’ to follow, represents the change of mentality–initiated during the Enlightenment [1715-1789]–on the understanding of what a prison should be and how prisoners were to be treated. Prisons were not to be a place where the incarcerated were piled up waiting for death or execution. The prisoner, in enforced seclusion, had to be morally re-educated before gaining its freedom and returning back to society.

The Panoptic Project by the British theorist Jeremy Bentham [1791] presented the ideal type for the new Barcelona prison.Bentham’s theoretical proposal for any activity that required strict monitoring, involved a centralised building with a series of concentric rings and radial wings emerging from the center. The first built examples of this theory that can be found are hospitals and factories, and eventually this concept was also adopted in prisons. In fact, this became a common model used in the US for large penitentiaries (Cherry Hill, in Philadelphia).

The architects Josep Domenech i Estapà and Salvador Viñals in 1881 received the commission to build a new prison for Barcelona, seven years later the project was ready and the building (after 13 years of construction) was inaugurated in 1904.

First it was dedicated to preventive detentions, but the initial good intentions of having one prisoner in each cell waned and soon there were times when four of them ended up living in a single cell.

UNDERSTANDING LA MODEL Source: La Model Competition document.

Prison wings/Galleries

Geriatric wing

Workshop building

Logistics and Services

Miscellaneous Structures

Peripheral prison walls

Courtyards and prison grounds

Architectural elements in the existing structure.

Levels of Preservation/Change

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THE PRISON PERIMETER

The worst scenario was during the Spanish Civil War, when the prison hosted many political prisoners and Unionists who opposed the Francoist side. Executions were constant, the last one in 1974, being the one perpetrated against the anarchist Salvador Puig Antich, who was garroted and was one of the last victims of the dictatorship.

The prison for decades hence, has become the symbol of the Francoist repression in Catalonia.

“The building, although unoccupied, is not empty, it is full of an infinity of screaming echoes and footprints that scratched its walls. It is a moral obligation to listen to them, and to remind them Prof. Enric Granell”.

Translated excerpt from “Hacia la carcel Model de Barcelona” in La Presó Model de Barcelona: taller de projectes X 2017-2018, ETSAV, UPCCommons.

UNDERSTANDING THE SITE - EXTERIOR The “Wall” as a blackboard for citizen claims. La Model in its urban context.

Source: Sara Bartumeus

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THE PRISON INTERIORS

UNDERSTANDING THE SITE - INTERIOR Source: Sara Bartumeus

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THE COMPETITION Competition for La Model following the Master Plan for La Model: Pla Director per la preso Model, 2019.

Direccio de Model Urba. Area d’Ecologia Urbana. Ajuntament de Barcelona.

COMPETITION BRIEF PUBLICATION DOCUMENT Excerpts from the original competition document.

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PROJECT AREA PROGRAM

AREA PROGRAM Area in sq.m.

A B C D E F G H

Memorial Space High School Nursery School Residential Area - Housing units Residential Area - supporting facilities Sports and Recreation facilities Youth Center Social Spaces

Common Space

3080 8728 1435 12292

Farmer's market, Social market space Multi-artistic space, Multipurpose Space (dance, theatre, workshops...), Workspaces, Ambient classrooms, Meeting rooms, Workshops, Restaurants, Kitchens, Facilities, Parking, etc.

3845 2500 1870 2990

36740 Area Program. Source: La Model Competition Brief Document.

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PRECEDENT STUDY

The studio program also insisted on precedent studies that helped the students identify various strategies that could be used while dealing with the preservation/conservation project. The precendents included a wide range of architecture - from museums, monasteries, war memorials, places of worship to psychiatric hospitals in Europe. This study also helped to understand ways of retaining collective memory in the case of buildings of historic significance. Every student analyzed a project and presented it to the rest of the class. At the end of the session, a quick exercise helped identify and compare the various architectural interventions done on these projects.

They were identified as action verbs that could be subsequently employed in the project’s design.

Palais du Tokyo, Paris, France.

Lacaton and Vassal

Memorial Rivesaltes, Rivesaltes, France.

Rudy Ricciotti

Caritas Psychiatric Institute, Belgium.

De Vylder Vinck Taillieu

Biblioteca de Les Aigues, Spain.

Lluis Clotet, Ignacio Paricio

Hadmark Museum, Norway.

Sverre Fehn

Goteborg City Hall, Sweden Gunnar Asplund

Diana Temple, Merida, Spain Jose Maria Sanchez Garcia

Santa Maria Church, Spain Aleaolea arquitectura I paisatge

Pousada Monastery Santa Maria Do Bouro, Portugal Eduardo Souto de Moura

Neues Museum, Germany David Chipperfield Architects

Some of the action-verbs identified were as follows: • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

Revealing Inserting Contrasting Volumetric changes Building Restoring Abstracting Framing Blending Infilling Re-interpreting Wrapping Stripping Deconstructing

PRECEDENT STUDY Varying levels of intervention studied with projects from around Europe.

Matrix connecting action-verbs across the different precedents.

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PROJECTS

Fields + Fabrics

- B. Samuel & S. Krishnan

Emancipacio

- U. Karia & S. Rajaseelan

First Prize, BENN JOHNCK AWARD 2020 Chicago Award in Architecture Student Competition

First Prize, DESIGN EXCELLENCE AWARD Illinois School of Architecture Spring semester, 2020

The Wall | La Paret

- M. Ledesma & J. Sanders

Encompassing Through - A. Cho & J. Gradman

Greenopticon

- H. Mattson & H. Shirley

The design tackles without hesitation the question of the monument and the city, of the building and the fabric, of how to rescale the site to turn the walled facility into part of the Eixample, clearly addressing the question of the fragment and the unity.

Understanding the site from the beginning as a complex of buildings and spaces, the project explores the spatial relationship between the built and the void, and innovates on how to add volumes, and–beyond–how to incorporate domesticity and build upon memory. The project makes the most out of the panoptic condition of the architecture and of the formal tension between the volumes and the resultant triangular spaces to generate a new network, an abstract grid, to support the new geometries of the new fields and fabrics.

The design initiated from a very abstract approach–resulting from the reading of the city, from a personal cartography representing Barcelona as a mosaic of selected fabrics of different nature and grain–derives from the intention to break down the monumentality of the site into meaningful city fragments. With an in-depth housing typological exploration, which gives also room to flexible distributions, the volumetric addition expanding from the cells not only establishes a relation with the structure of the prison, knitting two of their wings, but with the broader Eixample context. The new inserted fabric, connected through elevated hallways, with its terraces and galleries, private and collective outdoor spaces, reinterpret the relationship of the Cerda blocks’ interior facades with the courtyard. The color, the materiality and the versatility of these spaces with a new patchworked skin, talk the same language as Eixample’s more domestic and informal, internal face.

Acupunctural strategies, consisting of strategic fenestration around the original windows on the outdoor face of these homes, allow both the increase in daylight in the homes and preserve the original skin of the prison wings.

The proposal transforms the field and its boundaries by manipulating the ground plane and by proposing new levels and accesses to the buildings, establishing subtle distinctions between active and reflective spaces, between public, collective and individual spaces.

A sensorial approach to the preexistent material condition is also especially demonstrated in the memorial area. There, as a strong symbolic gesture, the detritus of the existing wall is captured within gabion walls. Similarly, the procession to enter the memorial, from the sunken garden to the ascension in between the exposed structure of the prison wing introduces a new spatial and sensory experience where the patina of the existing and the added material narrates the essence of the place.

A combination of topographic, volumetric, material and skin strategies, from an abstract to a formal and sensorial level, reveals the existing, including what is added in natural, powerful gestures.

- Prof. Sara Bartumeus

FIELDS + FABRICS - Shweta Krishnan & Bryan Samuel BENN JOHNCK AWARD, First Prize, 2020 AIA Chicago Award in Architecture student competition.

The jury, members of the AIA Chicago Foundation, met and agreed that the Fields and Fabric design proposal was their top choice. The jury thought that the project had a well-defined problem statement and that the overall design was strong and well composed. It was the clear winner.

DESIGN EXCELLENCE AWARD, First Place, Illinois School of Architecture.

Spring 2020.

City Scale Our initial investigations into Barcelona focused on the unique and varied fabrics that comprise the city. Though many are familar with the diagonal chamfered ‘Cerda Blocks’ of the Eixample district, there are many other scales and textures that warrant study. The intimate alleyways of Gracia have remained from it’s time as a sovereign nation, while the grand avenue of La Rambla has vestiges from the Gothic occupation. Newer urban experiments of pedestrian-friendly ‘Superblocks’

FIELDS + FABRICS

have taken shape in Sant Marti. FIELDS + FABRICS seeks to create a new urban fabric derived from the panoptic grid of La Model prison.

Neighborhood Scale Eixample was the urban realisation of Ildefons Cerda’s vision for a new Barcelona. His plan centered around carefully organized city blocks arranged on a 45° grid. These blocks were intended to be built only on two sides, framing a public courtyard. However, political and commercial interests corrupted his plan, and many of these courtyards have become isolated and privatized.

There is now a scarcity of walkable greenspace in Eixample. FIELDS + FABRICS seeks to transform the two Cerda Block wide site of La Model into a public park and plaza to provide outdoor recreation space for the neighborhood.

Neighborhood scale personal cartography.

Site Scale The panopticon has a formidable influence on the organization of the site. Our proposal developed two complementary strategies to enhance this unique urban condition. The first was to experiment with sectional differences, especially by cutting deep reveals adjacent to the sides of the prison galleries. This excavation brings light down to the hidden basements and emphasizes the monumentality of the prison, despite its relatively dimunitive stature in the neighborhood.

The second was to organize green spaces and architectural interventions in a patchwork around the panopticon. FIELDS + FABRICS seeks to emphasize the panoptic condition through sectional differences and gridded organizations

Site scale personal cartography.

Understanding La Model, Barcelona Personal Cartography City scale personal cartography.

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FIELDS + FABRICS

The Existing.

The Site Plan.

The Panoptic Grid.

The Fields - Landscape.

Understanding La Model, Barcelona Development of the Site Plan.

The Panoptic Condition.

The Site Axonometric.

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FIELDS + FABRICS

CIVIC 2320 m2

Programming Area and Function distribution

PANOPTIC OBSERVATION / COMMUNITY CENTER

RETAIL 1470 m2

RESTAURANT / CAFE / GROCERY / STOREFRONT

EDUCATION 5630 m2

SCHOOL / YOUTH CLUB / NURSERY

RECREATION 2770 m2

MULTISPORT PAVILION / FITNESS CENTER

MEMORIAL 2120 m2

MUSEUM / GIFT SHOP / ADMINISTRATION

RESIDENTIAL 7060 m2

PUBLIC HOUSING / SENIOR LIVING

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FIELDS + FABRICS

The Memorial While the community has called for a number of new, exciting programs to benefit the neighborhood, they have been very clear in the importance of remembering the atrocities that occurred at the site. One prison gallery has been allocated as the location for a memorial site. The Fields + Fabrics proposal envisions this memorial as a procession of contrast and reflection. It is the only part of the site that is still held behind the confines of a wall. Within these walls is an airy ascent through the existing archways.

This bright and upward march precedes a dark downward descent through the existing prison gallery by way of delicately suspended ramp. This ramp offers a look into prison life, with viewpoints into a preserved prison cell, the original barbershop and library, and a 1950 mural painted by former prisoner Helios Gomez.

Visitors exit the prison walk through the existing Patio entrance into a terraced courtyard. A gift shop and educational center is located at the base of the courtyard, and a monument to the last executed political prisoner is tucked away in a quiet garden. The memorial is open and free to the public and provides a place of sanctuary and contemplation.

The Procession.

Gabion wall section.

Spatial planning Memorial zone Existing prison wall mural.

The Memorial Courtyard.

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FIELDS + FABRICS

Residential Planning Public housing forms the largest component of the program requirements. To address this demand, the Fields + Fabrics proposal takes into consideration the architectural and structural conditions of the site as well as the demographics of the group it caters to.

Public amenities and landscapes form the interface between the residential areas and the neighborhood. Gentle slopes and terraced parks allow for seamless navigation across the site. The residences themselves have been categorized based on unit capacities, with distinct blocks dedicated to collective housing, families, couples, and senior living. The units along the exterior façade retain much of the existing structure. These modest units occupy 3 prison cells each and are suitable for one to two occupants. To accommodate larger families, a delicate scaffolded intervention is placed in the internal courtyard. This scaffolding cradles semi-enclosed ‘galerias’ that mediate a tenuous balance between interior and exterior space. Such breezy balconies are characteristic of Eixample housing and the late 19th century paintings of Ramon Casas.

Spatial planning Residential zone

Residential Planning - Program Distribution.

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The patchwork motif of Fields + Fabrics also extends to vertical facades of the residences.

Each occupant is given the freedom to personalize their own home, from the interior planning to exterior façade. A defined structural system and material palette ensure a degree of cohesion across the site while embracing

self-expression. As such, the architecture simultaneously enables a sense of individuality and community that formed the premise of this competition.

FIELDS + FABRICS

The Galerias Configuration.

Residential Planning - Layout.

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Residential Planning - Schematic Section.

The Galerias Configuration - Section.

The Galerias Configuration - Elevation.

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FIELDS + FABRICS

The Barcelona Galerias.

Painting by Ramon Casas.

The Galerias Configuration - From Within.

The Galerias Configuration - Diversity in Layout.

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The project goes straight to the heart of the matter in terms of physical connectivity and focusses and challenges the boundary of the site. Questioning the complete openness of the precinct, the project searches for creative ways to integrate the prison into the city fabric instead of turning the wall down. At the gist of the project is an understanding that the walled perimeter is essential to keep the collective memory of the place.

Far from becoming an impediment, the proposal sees the wall as an opportunity, as a generator of activity, as an element to reconnect with the street life and as a strong perceptual tool, as a place to be activated and inhabited. The reading of the ground floor of the city equips the project with a rhythm and a sequence of events, of varying intensities, echoed along the wall. The housing units and prefab retail kiosks follow as well a module that comes from the city edge’s rhythm of storefronts and portals.

These units grow from the wall like rhizomes, colonize the open space at the southside with a more dense fashion, and as parasites, attach to the building to be part of the homes. Its modularity and incrementality gives the proposal a sustainable and a sensitive approach to growth over time.

Different design actions such as inserting, plugging in, perforating and replacing are applied to the wall. In consequence, the wall becomes a ramp, an elevated path, a porch, and a gateway to the site, as well as a bridge and a hallway to the homes. Beyond that, the wall can be understood as landscape, as building, as infrastructure, as a threshold between the city and the site, and as a generator of activity.

It brings in place a range of relative positions - underneath, above, in between, inside, across, adjacent to, allowing the inhabitant and the citizen a variety of experiences of the site and the city as well as different perspectives on the panoptic building, while serving as memorial...

The visitor can go up to the wall through different media, such as the vertical cores inserted inside the existing towers, through interstitial ramps, or climbing up following a zigzagged sloping path. Once there, as in a medieval walled city one can circulate within the two blocks’ perimeter.

The site can be accessed through designated openings in the wall, the pedestrian can either cross it at thoroughfares in between cafes and shops, or trespass below it across a porticated gateway. Dwellers can also access the higher levels of the housing from the wall through connecting bridges, at the same time than visitors can access the cafes’ roof terraces of the quiosques from this new elevated street.

- Prof. Sara Bartumeus

THE WALL | LA PARET - Mario Ledesma & Jacob Sanders

THE WALL | LA PARET

THE WALL (Border Between Boundaries) looks at alternatives to the set edge that once kept prisoners barricaded inside of La Model Prison and impeded locals to experience that beyond the wall. The project keeps the collective memory of the prison through the wall while blending the wall into the existing urban context. The wall also subverts the old purpose of enclosure, and offers a place of mingling and play.

The wall serves as the generator for all parts of the project. Inhabiting the wall gives the users of the ways to interact on multiple levels by providing different threshold types. These thresholds allow for different uses, such as the large ramp which brings people up through the center of the old wall and helps people experience the collective memory in the museum. The hill allows for adequate height in the underground sports center while creating an atrium and providing space to move above and below the wall. Additions were added to the wall and prison by observing the patterns in the existing structure and surrounding building facades. The new modules are designed to be prefabricated for easy and affordable assembly for the public housing and allow for minimal structural changes to the existing buildings.

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Window

Door

Wall

Balcony

Garage

Understanding La Model, Barcelona Personal Cartography - Edge Rhythm Conditions.

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THE WALL | LA PARET

Site section

Programming The site masterplan and section.

Site plan

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HOUSING ADDITIONS TO THE PRISON

THE WALL | LA PARET

1 BEDROOM WITH BALCONY 0m

Units planned for easy transportation and assembly.

2m

STUDIO

1 BEDROOM

2 BEDROOM

4m

Old Structure + New Additions

SECOND LEVEL PLAN

SENIOR LIVING CAFE APARTMENT UNITS

20m 40m

0m 10m

Programming The Apartment units as attachments and Pre-fabrication.

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THE WALL | LA PARET

Facade Rhythms Derived from Context and Wall Structure.

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THE WALL | LA PARET

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THE WALL | LA PARET MUSEUM PRECESSION ENTRANCE

MOVING THROUGH MARKET AREA

MUSEUM PRECESSION AT NIGHT

UNDER THE RECONSTRUCTED ENTRY

APPROACHING THE WALL

GOING DOWN THE HILL

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This project reflects on the benefits of opening La Model in terms of pedestrian mobility and accessibility, and seeks to reconnect the site with the rest of the neighborhood and the city.

The main strategies respond to the understanding of the whole site as a potential connector and the project is shaped by imagining people’s flow through and around La Model.

It prioritizes pedestrian movement, taking into account destinations and connections with the nearby facilities at a metropolitan and city scale, such as the Sants train station and the Clinic Hospital, and at a local scale, looking at the main avenues, public transportation and public spaces in the neighborhood.

This rationale materializes in a clear southwest-northeast diagonal axis and a symmetry in the project’s layout. The open space permeates through this diagonal where annexed spaces to the galleries of the two longer wings have been emptied to establish a pathway in the ground floor level, an open thoroughfare accompanied by alternated temporary market stands.

The other four wings are linked together with a third element turning them into triangular blocks enclosing triangular courtyards.

These courtyards are arranged diagonally opposite to the thoroughfare, contraposing and compensating for the openness of the rest of the site. The fourth wing, destined to the memorial links with its neighboring wing to enlarge the facility at the northwest side with supporting areas and activities; while at the opposite southeast side, the first wing extends the hallway of its gallery to become the horizontal accesses for the whole housing block.

This strategy helps the project clearly demarcate the most public, open space in the site and the ones that require more privacy, the domestic space of the housing and the reflective one of the memorial.

Not only does the proposal look carefully on how people will move taking into account different scales, but also follows the intention to change movement patterns within the site from the rigid radial movement of prisoners and jailers, dictated by the panoptic condition of the architecture, to a circular flow in the site across the building wings. Strategic staggered openings in the different wings, linked by a network of outdoor pathways and supported by the landscape, allow this other circulation to connect the different programs and activities in place. These spaces, semi-opened and double-heighted thresholds, become opportunities for permeability, for crossed indoor-outdoor views, and have a ripple effect, spreading and multiplying the connective function of the panopticon. The project utilizes the bold geometry of the building to overcome the negative perception of the same prison’s panoptic condition.

- Prof. Sara Bartumeus

ENCOMPASSING THROUGH - Antonia Cho & Joshua Gradman

ENCOMPASSING THROUGH

Looking more deeply at our site, we researched the movement within the site throughout the past and present. In the past, since it was used as a prison the user movement was very limited. The prisoners weren’t able to access the courtyard from one to another but could only access separately. Since it is opened to the public as a tour in present, the movement is also limited as shown on graphic.

Through this study, we wanted to express the notion of a “freed” ground floor plan around the panopticon so that the site would create a circular motion for the users as the pedestrian movement around the site is linear.

In order to create a circular motion, we have studied different building strategies that penetrate each wing. We categorized these openings into 3 typologies; total porosity, 100% vertical porosity, and 75% vertical porosity. To create the free diagonal axis we completely demolished the ground floor of two wings, creating market spaces on the next two floors. In the other wings, they were opened up vertically to allow an uninterrupted circulation on the ground floor.

Neighborhood Scale + Bike Path

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ENCOMPASSING THROUGH

Green Area Design Perspective

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+

ENCOMPASSING THROUGH

TOTAL POROSITY

VERTICAL POROSITY 100%

In order to create a circular motion, we have studied different building strategies that penetrate each wing. We categorized these openings into 3 typologies; total porosity, 100% vertical porosity, and 75% vertical porosity. To create the free diagonal axis we completely demolished the ground floor of two wings, creating market spaces on the next two floors. In the other wings, they were opened up vertically to allow an uninterrupted circulation on the ground floor.

+ ADDITION

VERTICAL POROSITY 100%

REMOVED

VERTICAL POROSITY 75%

TOTAL POROSITY

Diagram Showing types of intervention - addition and subtraction.

Facade Rhythms Derived from Context and Wall Structure.

Building Section

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ENCOMPASSING THROUGH

Ground floor: Our green spaces are mostly laid out following the radial movement. The green spaces on the free axis are open to the public while the courtyard in between public housing wings are more privatized for residents. The other courtyard in between the memorial space and the youth center is utilized as an outdoor gallery space which will exhibit the collective memory of the space.

The way we dealt with the edges was removing the existing wall to free the accessibility however changing levels slightly to create boundary between the sidewalk and the site on two edges.

Moving on to the second floor and third floor, the main difference is the alternated floor slabs of market space that allow users to have more visual interactions between floors. The materiality of added floor slabs in the market space are made out of light material as translucent glass which will let more natural sunlight into the space and preserve the appearance of the rib structure the most.

UP

UP

UP

UP

UP

Ground Floor Plan

Facade Rhythms Derived from Context and Wall Structure.

View of the Second Story Market Space

Auditorium Wing Courtyard Perspective

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After an in-depth analysis of the context, the project founds its strategy in the manipulation of the groundline and in the urbanization of the open space to generate a new landscape.

It is with planes and folds, through ground and topographical strategies, that the project deals with the nature of the different boundaries of the site, giving also to the open space a protagonist role to establish relationships between the different volumes of the penitentiary building devoted to uses and activities of different natures.

The galleries of the wings extend to become principal accesses to the building and the site, anchoring its origins and ends to the sidewalks in the corners.

Almost like moats of a castle, in the southern side, the two triangular sunken plazas give an umbilical character to the accesses through the opened galleries of the wings. The plazas demarcate the outdoor space and activate it with a market.

Besides lowering the ground, other strategies peel off the ground to host a facility underneath or to slope it down to the underground entrance of the housing, creating a more secluded space - an outdoor amphitheater towards the panopticon.

Other landscape strategies, with the trees instead of the ground, as main actors, are used to recreate another type of volumetric limit, a dense forest against the less active urban facade or to emphasize a punctuated directional access with boulevards in the northwestern side of the site.

The project takes advantage of the complexity of the penitentiary architecture and does not avoid it in the new additions, but, instead, expands the condition of the central panoptic, in the past the distributor of flows in the ground floor, to the underground level and to the proposed upper levels. The corridors and hallways become outdoor collective spaces and opportunities for displaying a softer green screen on the facade. In the architecture, especially in the housing volumes, the proposal makes the most out of the existing cells to explore with rigor and creativity, different dwelling typologies.

- Prof. Sara Bartumeus

EMANCIPACIO -Ushma Karia & Sterlee Rajaseelan

EMANCIPACIO

For this project, the significant axes on the site are identified. These axes are bridging major activities in and around Barcelona – making each one unique and important. Existing structures on site are studied – with the admin located on the North east right end and being the most private the site becomes more public as you go towards the left, a gradience of introverted to extroverted nature can be seen. The program is accommodated keeping this character of the site in mind.

Floor plan Axons Ground Floor Layout

The existing site has a wall that runs on the peripheries that keeps the panopticon and surrounding buildings detached from the context – contributing to the intermediate character. Re-imagining this boundaries, and abstracting it – the intervention focuses on microtopographical and landscape design strategies i.e manipulating the ground plane and creating a dense volume through a forest like plantation. This abstract barrier enhances visual connectivity and opens up the space, yet gives you a sense of boundary.

The school placement, marketplace, youth center, playground and museum on the left and residential area including public housing, senior citizen housing, auditorium and sports centre. The panopticon is at the center with a garden around it where all the axes merge.

Bridges emerging from the panopticon in 6 directions connect to the wing reinforcing the panoptic condition.

Facade Rhythms Derived from Context and Wall Structure.

First Floor Layout

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EMANCIPACIO

Two galleries of the panopticon have been used as residential wings. The two housing wings are connected centrally with terraces – which is acting as a interaction zone between the two wings.

We have come up with 2 typologies – 1 BR and 2 BR. For the 1BR, there are two different layouts – one on the northern side has a bigger bedroom area and the other has a bigger living area. The 1 BR unit uses two of the prison cell units and is extended outwards as a part of the new construction.

Public Housing - First Floor

The 2 Br typology faces south and is formed by taking into consideration 3 prison cell units and extending outwards. Thus typology is evolved by adding to the 1 Br typology facing south.

The inward facing balconies promote interaction and visual connection amongst the people and fosters the feeling of community.

The three br on the floor above follows the 2 storey row house typology. Each unit is evolved by combining 3 prison cells and is being extended forward to form an “L” layout. The living space of each unit has a staircase that leads to the attic level. This L shaped typology is mirrored to form an intimate interaction zone between 2 units, which also incorporates the entry for each unit.

Public Housing - Second Floor

Public Housing - Key Plan

Public Housing - Third Floor

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EMANCIPACIO

Section through the marketplace.

Section through the residential area.

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EMANCIPACIO

View depicting the transition in levels

View depicting the relation of housing with the panopticon and landscape

View between the farmer market and panopticon

View depicting the transition in levels

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Inserting different types, scales and natures of green–domestic green, productive green, public green–is the main strategy for the transformation of the former prison into a livable, green hub.

The proposal opens the door to further exploration on researching and experimenting on new forms of urban greenery and ecology for enhancing livability.

The project brings into play the vision of greenery taking over the architecture and the site, as a tool for softening the harsh memories, as a tool for healing. The central panoptic as a greenopticon, turns the harsh condition of the ‘controller eye’ to a welcoming destination, a green public heart.

The perimeter and the wall is reinterpreted following different design strategies to establish a new boundary. At the farthest corners of the site, the perimeter becomes building. By consolidating the chamfers with new public housing, the project not only resumes the lost dialog of the precinct with the Cerda fabric, but inhabits and adds urbanity to these main intersections. In the northern and southern sides, the traces of the former walled limit are reimagined to give continuity to the Eixample sidewalks with tree alignements on planters and intermittent sitting opportunities.

The project reimagines the prison wings and their galleries as places for living, learning and producing. The greenery is inserted in the architecture, in the vertical farm with hydroponic cultivation as well as in the housing, where the access to every two living units is through a threshold space, a covered terrace that creates the opportunity for the residents to have a mini elevated ‘front yards’ where to grow vegetables or have plant pots. This domestic green is also perceived from the public space. These threshold spaces are pauses and visual and light opportunities to communicate the exterior with the central galleries of the existing wings.

They become part of the rhythm of gaps created to articulate the existing volumes with the extended volumes in the housing, when the hallway in the axis becomes an exterior elevated corridor.

- Prof. Sara Bartumeus

GREENOPTICON - Helena Mattson & Hallie Shirley

GREENOPTICON

We have highlighted some of the city’s most prominent green spaces, as well as points of interest around our site. One of the things we noticed very quickly was the overall lack of green throughout the city. This became our main issue to rectify in our own development of the site.

Neighborhood scale Zooming into the Neighborhood scale we analyzed the program layout, major transportation and Major “green” areas. Doing this analysis allowed us to see what types of programs are directly related to our site and which type of programs were lacking. Looking at this map you can see that there is a lack of actual green spaces so that is one of the major things that we looked at when moving forward with our design. Focusing in one that we wanted to bring the green into all the areas the neighborhood was asking for.

Density of Green Space

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Site scale This image highlights a lot of what the people of the Eixample neighborhood wanted in a new site.

The images depicted are painted murals on the old wall that used to surround the prison. Starting with the climbing wall going clockwise the images symbolize Sports and recreation, Housing, Fun, and Culture. We then strove to fulfill each of their wants in our new design for the city.

Responding to the Chamfer Circulation to Major Nodes

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PERSONAL CARTOGRAPHY Green spaces, Major Nodes and the Chamfer.

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School 2,110 Square Meters Youth and Sports 4,370 Square Meters Housing 22,200 Square Meters Memorial Space 800 Square Meters Green 22,200 Square Meters

GREENOPTICON

Levels of Preservation and Intervention In this exploded axon we are showing our levels of intervention to the site. Going from the bottom up we organized by how much intervention we did in that particular area. As you can see we kept the east and west buildings as close to original as possible and in red are buildings that have been fully demolished as well as the wall which we also fully demolished. Next is the Memorial space or the north west wing, the only change that took place in this space is the opening of 2 cell widths to provide a walking connection through the site. Similar to the Memorial we provided the same opening to the south west wing adding only small changes to the plan layout and facade by opening them up just slightly. In the center is the Panopticon where we have kept the center and half the north wing mostly intact. We have taken out the ground floor in the center to match the floors above. Next is the remaining half of the north wing and the complete south wing which we have deconstructed to the leaving just the arch structure. We have implemented new walking paths made from a material to better penetrate light. Second to last we the Northeast and southeast wings where we have deconstructed some of the arches to provide outdoor area as well as the roof to have more light penetration. At the corners we have provided new built masses allowing emphasis on the chamfer corners. Lastly we have added a complete new building to the site.

Levels of Privacy In this axon we are showing where we have addressed the required program as well as the LEVELS OF INTERVENTION AND PRIVACY Program distribution and levels of intervention.

Levels of intervention

Programmatic Privacy Levels

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GREENOPTICON

privacy levels throughout the site. At the bottom are the more public access spaces which is where you will find the memorial, new sports complex and the public gathering space of the panopticon.

Above that is the schooling and youth center which would be more closed off the public. Last in purple is the housing, while the site is all public access this would be the most privatized area.

The green intervention plan shows how we address green spaces differently at the ground level. Located where the wall once was, we provide water spaces where people can sit as well as trying to incorporate the line of trees that are found on most cerda blocks. The next level of green space is areas in which are left in air quotes untouched. These are spaces for people to lounge and kids to run on the grass. The architectural level of green are places in which we have architecturally intervened to create green areas that were not possible with the original site. We have created the green roof of the sports complex as well as turning the center of the panopticon into a green oasis. Lastly we have the areas in which we provided miniature planting panopticons that have plants in the center and seating around it.

Three-dimensional view of the Project

Looking at the Chamfer in the west side of the site we wanted to place additional housing. This housing would allow for more space per unit increasing the size of the housing to two bedroom options. We have connected the chamfer housing by bridges. By doing this we wanted to allow for a sense of disconnect from the original wing of the Panopticon reinforcing the existing essense of the Panopticon as well the existing structure

THE DESIGN Greening the panopticon and the Chamfered edge condition.

Ground Floor Plan

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Detail

GREENOPTICON

Vertical Farming Production Detail

View-01 of the Vertical Farming Production units.

Vertical Farming Plan Scale: 1:200

Details of the Vertical Farming Production units.

View-02 of the Vertical Farming Production units.

Vertical Farming Plan Scale: 1:200

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CONCLUSIONS

The projects, their complexities, challenges and questions. Uniqueness and commonalities The studio projects establish different conceptual approaches and design strategies to respond to some of the questions, the character of the site and the transformation entailed. Here are described some of the complexities, challenges and questions that have been part of the studio’s collective reflection throughout the design process: Some values The spatial value - both typological and constructive, of the site and the building and its adaptability to be reinterpreted and adjusted to new uses.

The value of memories, the need to preserve them or the willingness to erase them. Reminiscence, not obliteration, for healing.

Some friction Friction between the different programs and activities’ requirements in terms of space that had to be allocated on site and the rigid structure of the architecture in place.

Friction between the scale of the needs that the site can solve, providing the neighborhoods with facilities lacking in the place, but also responding to needs at the city scale, of urban -connectivity, -vitality and -ecology.

How to articulate differences (in activities, building types, materiality, gradient of privacy and exposure, permeability…) and still keep the former unified condition of the facility. If ‘unity’ matters at all in this new condition, La Model ceases to be a building and becomes a fragment of fabric. - A question about the fragments and the whole.

What to do with the limits, with the boundaries between the site and its context, and between the architecture and the public space?. A question on the site’s permeability; on the architecture porosity; on the activity at the city ground level, at the urban edge, where architecture and city meet. - A question about limits and edges.

What can open space add in terms of continuity and how can the proposed green space become systemic, and be part of a potential ecological western corridor in the city? - A structural question.

Even though every project is unique in its formalisation, one can find common approaches to preserve the site values, to solve the frictions between the diverse new activities, and to solve the dichotomies between objects of preservation. Each project also tackles some of the questions on the site’s essence and the level and extents of the transformation, the unity and the fragmentation or the condition of the limits.

Some attitudes, some strategies, and some design answers regarding the perimeter, the design of the boundary

Some dichotomies The dichotomy between the reflective, introverted space of the memorial coexisting with high activity and high performance extroverted facilities. Or between adjacencies of facilities serving different generations.

The dichotomy of preserving or intervening in the structure versus doing so in the envelope or skin.

Some questions What type of transformation still preserves the architectural heritage and its panoptical condition? and to what extent? - A qualitative and quantitative question.

One project keeps, transforms and inhabits the double wall itself (the wall). Another one demolishes the wall, but partially reconstructs it with its same detritus (fields+fabrics). The first understands the wall as a generator of new activities, and both of them see it as a depositary of memory.

The rest of the projects completely demolish the wall. Some of them build on part of the perimeter to allocate housing or facilities, to control the openness of the site, to articulate the architecture facing the street and to give more intimacy to the open space (greenopticon, encompassing through, emancipacio).

While in some projects the built is part of the limits, in some others is mostly the landscape (emancipacio,encompassing through,

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greenopticon). Some emphasize the site’s former perimeter by underlying the trace of the wall with greenery, with a soft boundary, (greenopticon).

not by giving a unitarian solution to all the volumes of the prison, but by proposing a symmetric layout along their different axis (encompassing through, greenopticon).

Most of them somehow manipulate the ground plane to demarcate the site from its surroundings, creating a transition from the street using micro-topography and changes of level and or to mark designated accesses that guide people’s flow (emancipacio, field+fabrics, encompassing through).

Similar questions to the unity and the fragment at the site scale are applicable to the architecture scale, where the projects answer differently the question of preserving the integrity vs. adding porosity to the volume, the structure and the skin at the building scale.

The original facade has been punctured, replaced, modules attached, green pockets and has had layered terraces or minimal surgical insertions made. In some still, large parts of the original structure and facade has been preserved to great extent.

All the proposals use different treatment of the limits and respond in varying ways to the surrounding urban conditions. regarding topography, and microtopography Besides the aforementioned manipulation of the ground at the boundaries to create sunken plazas and give accessible access to the basement level of the existing building, some projects fold the ground to create slopes, green roofs for underground facilities.

These topographies connect different levels within the existing volumes and become opportunities for softscape and for outdoor amphitheaters (the wall, greenopticon, emancipacio, field + fabrics). Only one project does not propose slopes or mounds as landscaped elements, and minimizes the transformation of the planimetry of the ground with a sunken hardscape courtyard (encompassing through). regarding the unity and the fragment - at the urban and architectural level.

All studio projects confront ways of preserving the unity of La Model as an urban piece, and yet transform it into a complex architecture adapted to host activities with different spatial needs. The site scale strategies following this direction relate to the amount and the character of the architectural transformation and to the conception of the open space and its landscape as a single or multiple entities.

Projects, in diverse forms, do not keep the integrity of all the volumes. Specially in the gallery wings, where to preserve the structure and transform the cells into dwellings a volumetric extension is needed. What all projects do is preserve the building’s panoptic condition, keeping the radial galleries open with different strategies.

There is one project that questions La Model’s unity, and fragments the site into contrasting spaces, planes and volumetries, yet conversely keeps the former building as an entity when it mostly preserves its skin. The respect to a sensorial unity is kept respecting the skin with almost antagonist design strategies: by making disappear some facades–peeling the skin off the structure–and by detaching the new volumes and skins of the facades in between wings while preserving the outdoor skin almost intact, strategically perforated (fields+fabrics).

Through the design of the green and public space, all projects also tackle the question of unity and fragmentation. Most of them have different designs for each of the former triangular prison patios. The different atmospheres of these pocket parks respond to diverse streetscapes and urban conditions and act as buffers with the adjacent built fabric. We could say that only one project, after bounding with triangular block opposite patios into interior courtyards, leaves the rest of the open space as one landscape organized through radial geometries and circular circulation (encompassing through). regarding porosity and entity of public and green space.

The greenscape has to have a certain entity to actively become part of an ecological corridor, hence all the projects tend to concentrate green in significant square footage. In addition, most of the impervious surface becomes porous, enhancing the soil’s permeability.

There are projects which envision the hardscape in the center, at the panopticon, or as ambulatory paths around it as well in the corners (encompassing through, emancipacio). Others envision it as a part of the built form -as cores, inserted terraces, roofs and secondary envelopes (greenopticon, fields+fabrics, the wall, emancipacio)

Only one project keeps the unity of the penitentiary building by preserving its physical perimeter (the wall). Others achieve ,

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Strategies also involve atomizing a majority of green into islands throughout the site (fields+fabrics). The studio projects thus treat the open spaces at different scales, as continuous urban parks, as green pockets, as vertical greens and planter boxes. regarding coexistence of activities, articulation of program and transformation

the projects manage to create unique experiences of the same space. Some preserve the memory of the prison’s past by not disturbing the panoptic condition of the architecture, by keeping some traces of the old volumes or walls, material wise, skin wise...(encompassing through, emancipacio). Others look to preserving memory in ways other than the mere retention of the original architecture - by healing the painful memories related to the architecture with greenery (greenopticon).

All projects locate the educational facilities in the former prison workshops, in the parallel buildings, opting for concentrating all ages programs in the school system in one building, and allowing them sharing common spaces with classrooms for flexible uses in the short volume. One project has the kindergarten under the housing for the elderly, incentivizing intergenerational exchange (field+fabrics). Consequently in most projects the School’s playgrounds together with the sports facilities have been located underground in the adjacent triangle space. An alternative location chosen for the sports center has been the southwest corner, to enhance neighbors accessibility and to engage with the street (the wall, encompassing through).

The challenge of the project has been to navigate through the strong geometric presence of the panoptic, while retaining the essence of the spatial relationships that it brings forth. The projects have preserved the panoptic condition understanding the void as a structural tool to articulate and connect volumes, open spaces and functions, and to vertebrate the urban space.

Other facilities such as the youth center and the social economy programs as artist facilities or community markets have been located mostly in the shortest wings, at the center of the site, looking after programmatic synergies and allowing a more porous axis.

Associate Professor, School of Architecture Head of Urbanism University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Asst.Prof. School of Architecture of Valles, Barcelona Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya Principal, Renau Bartumeus arquitectes https://www.renbart.com/

The projects have followed a common criteria regarding the location of public housing, having them all in the galleries of the panoptic building, where the cells have been expanded because they are too small to house dwellings. In places, the existing corridors serve as links to the housing units (greenopticon, encompassing through, the wall), in others, access is planned through corridors along the external facade (emancipacio, fields+fabrics). Some projects treat the corridors as thoroughfares, whereas others treat them as an extension of the larger community spaces within the precinct.

Prof. Sara Bartumeus Ferre

regarding the memorial and memory All projects preserve the fourth wing as a memorial, as this was also a premise of the competition, and therefore of the studio.

This gallery holds an emotional value, as it is where most of the political prisoners were held and contains traces from the prisoners and art by the activists. Not only that, but it is also in good physical condition and hence is an ideal part to be retained as an example of penitentiary architecture. Each project employs different strategies to curate the visitor’s experience of moving within the prison gallery. Some preserve the original circulation paths and some adopt a more dramatic and detached procession through the gallery (the wall, fields+fabrics). By pulling subtle design levers like access and relationship with the panoptic,

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THE STUDIO

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Prof. Sara Bartumeus Ferre Associate Professor, School of Architecture Head of Urbanism University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Graphic Design and Editing: Shweta Krishnan First Year - M.Arch, Illinois School of Architecture University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign