Output details

Banyoles Old Town Refurbishment

RESEARCH CONTENT AND PROCESS

--Description--

Banyoles Old Town has one of the region’s most emblematic heritage architectural and urban centres. The refurbishment modernises the public space and its systems, and builds a new sense of public landscape by uncovering the old drainage canals and reincorporating them into squares and pedestrian streets.

--Questions--

1. How can the identifying physical history and geology of the town be legible in the regeneration of its public spaces?

2. How to create a common material background for architectural and urban heritage by designing pedestrian-only spaces?

3. How to modernise services (plumbing, low-tension telephone, gas and drainage) effectively while respecting Banyoles’s architecture, urban morphology and natural features?

--Methods--

1. Urban and heritage landscape research for developing a design syntax for paving the old town.

2. Design research methods for creating a place for life that rediscovers the old town’s resources and re-envisions its public spaces, e.g. by making its canals visible.

3. Integrated design and historical research towards the creation of a continuous ‘historical’ pavement, based on traces of remains, plot divisions, ruins and water canals.

4. Meeting local government heritage standards.

5. Handcrafted techniques combined with contemporary industrialised processes.

--Dissemination--

Featured in eight exhibitions; presented in nearly 40 international invited talks; widely reviewed, including in On Diseño, Mas Context, Arquitectura Viva, Deutsche Bauzeitung, Tectónica, Pasajes de Arquitectura y Crítica, Built-On, Yapi, Hinge and Detail.

SIGNIFICANCE

The project won first prize in an open international architectural competition organised by Banyoles Town Council (1998). Because of the project’s overall size, regeneration of the different areas has been phased. Awards include: Finalist, 5th Urban Public Spaces European Prize (2008); Finalist, Landscape European Prize, Rosa Barba (2008); Winner, Catalonia Construction Award (2009); Finalist, FAD Awards (2010); Selected Project, Obra del Año Plataforma Arquitectura (2011); Winner, International Stone Awards (2013).

This extensive project to regenerate the historic quarter of Banyoles in northern Spain was won through an international architectural competition, and its implementation was so large and complex that it had to be developed in a series of phases over 15 years, with many of the most important parts completed since 2008. As a project spanning services infrastructure, architecture, conservation, legacy and urban design, the scale and scope of the research involved was prodigious. The final result is an important exemplar of how to use innovative contemporary design to revive decaying towns, and this has been marked by numerous awards.