Butterfly Landing

Llobregat Park, Barcelona, Spain

Students: Maria Cerdà - YTAA Shortlist

Location: Llobregat Park, Barcelona, Spain

A minimum Intervention for a big evolutionary leap

"Butterflies as important environmental indicators, provide the point of departure for this project. To restore native flora and fauna, creating a garden that encourages the development of the food chain. To rehabilitate and recycle spaces that form part of the historic site and to create new spaces."

During this period, the teaching assignment was formulated in conjunction with the Directorate General Of Urban Planning of the Department of Territory and Sustainability of the Generalitat de Catalunya Catalan government, with the aim of contributing to the regeneration of strategic areas of Barcelona’s Metropolitan Region.

In urban terms, the strategy is to create a green corridor, connecting the mountain and the sea, the city and the protective framework of the Llobregat Agricultural Park. Also the road infrastructure is modificated, now the roundabout is a protected area for “prats de dall”, an historical catalan way to protect native flora and fauna.

In the protective framework of the Llobregat Agricultural Park and in response to the present impairment of the environment, butterflies, as important environmental indicators, provide the point of departure for this project. The keys are:

To restore native flora and fauna, creating a specialized botanical garden that encourages the development of the food chain. This garden is connected with the protected area of the roundabout.

To rehabilitate and recycle unused spaces that form part of the historic site of Can Torelló, which, in the 1920s, was a naturalist site before being turned into a military barracks after the Spanish Civil War. A minimum intervention to the farmhouse turns it into the centre of the complex with two exhibition areas, a bar, an information point, co-working areas and also back office spaces. A reinterpretation of the old arsenal produces the butterfly farm, where we can found a live exhibition and take knowledge about butterflies.

To create spaces to promote the complex and provide backing for research in the form of laboratories with greenhouses, a space for work and one genebank. For development and generate some economy, appears ten cabins where people can experience the place. This ones are designed recreating the genetic code of the place and studying the evolution of the limit and how we can understand it, in this plot represented by the exterior wall.