DEVELOPMENT OF THE FRIGO BLOCK, 22@. BARCELONA

This urban improvement plan involves one of the four blocks that make up the Parc Central – Can Ricart superblock, in the 22@ district in the Poblenou neighbourhood in Barcelona, which is occupied by the former Frigo ice cream factory, a group of industrial buildings and offices designed by the industrial engineer Joaquim Romaguera and built in 1959.

This group of industrial buildings is protected by the catalogue of industrial buildings of the Poblenou neighbourhood, and in view of the conclusions of the historical study that has been written, many of the existing buildings must be preserved, and are reused as community facilities and as unconventional housing.

The preservation of these buildings, which form the corner and many of the exterior façades of the block, and the establishment of a minimum distance from the historic conservation area of the buildings in the old Can Ricart textile factory, which occupies a large proportion of two of the four blocks in the sector with a low building intensity, are the factors which determine the layout of the proposed new volumes, which cover the built area in the block (34,139.21 m²) and which therefore have a considerable volume.

On the façade of Perú street, a street that contains a continuous row of facilities and therefore has an effective width between alignments of around 90 metres, there is a 52-metre-high tower on a two-storey base, which provides continuity for the industrial building that is preserved. On the other side of the historic building, on the façade overlooking Bilbao street, is an L-shaped articulated building that extends over the façade on Bolívia street towards the pacified interior of the superblock. This creates several public spaces that provide continuity for the system of squares and interstitial passages that characterise the urban fabric of the Can Ricart area.