Land Reclamation: Return to El Prat’s Origins
Land Reclamation: Return to El Prat’s Origins
Land Reclamation: Return to El Prat’s Origins
Land Reclamation: Return to El Prat’s Origins
Land Reclamation: Return to El Prat’s Origins
Land Reclamation: Return to El Prat’s Origins
Land Reclamation: Return to El Prat’s Origins
Although it’s easy to perceive agriculture and industry as dichotomous, the two have always been deeply intertwined. Today, the global food system itself is a product of systematized mass production and complex supply chains. What if the connections ran even deeper? This is the question at the heart of Eduard Matarredona Gómez’s provocative yet sensitive proposal for mixed-use land reclamation in Catalonia. Drawing on a careful study of El Prat de Llobregat — a bustling manufacturing hub just outside Barcelona proper that was once known as the “vegetable garden of Barcelona” — the project introduces a spatially efficient yet impressively scalable system of food production and agricultural research to the community’s existing industrial fabric.
Using a modular system of CLT structures, Matarredona Gómez reimagines rooftops and leftover sites as new farmlands, which would be built without disrupting functions at existing industrial facilities. The modular system is engineered to enable ease of installation without compromising the base buildings’ structural integrity, and the use of lightweight soil systems, hydroponics and agrovoltaics further reduces loads.
This “parasitic” yet complementary architecture would be part of a local circular economy, one that incorporates on-site research laboratories and greenhouses with an emphasis on adapting seeds for a changing climate. These educational hubs would bring the public up close to the science and labour of food production.
By harnessing an industrial landscape to promote sustainable local food production — and reduce dependency on carbon-intensive international shipping — the project finds a harmonious balance between agricultural heritage and an industrial economy. It is a stirring reminder that ecological sensitivity can also spur job creation and community resilience.
Drawing on a careful study of a bustling manufacturing hub outside Barcelona, the project introduces a scalable system of food production into the existing fabric.
