Ecodistrict laMercedes in Barcelona

The old Mercedes-Benz factory is an industrial site of 9 hectares located at a key point between the Bon Pastor neighbourhood and the historical centre of Sant Andreu. The factory creates a barrier between surrounding residential areas with different social and economic characteristics, the plan aims to make it the intersection of two new urban axes that will connect them. The Mercedes factory's historical and cultural value lies both in the material value of its buildings, a product of successive projects carried out by the architect Robert Terradas between the 1950s and 1970s, with a rationalist architecture of clear Nordic inspiration, and in its intangible value as a testimony to the neighbourhood’s industrial past. A mixed use neighbourhood To accomplish the transformation of the plot with new life, in an economical feasible way, new buildability was added to the existing and potential one, with new typologies of buildings that could accommodate those uses which could not locate themselves in the historical buildings. Thus, in La Mercedes a mixed-use neighbourhood is created that combines 116,000 m2 of housing (of which 40% social housing), 1,300 homes, with 78,000 m2 of services, proximity commerce, industry 4.0 and public facilities, generating synergies between the centres of creation and dissemination of knowledge. A sustainable neighbourhood The commitment to a neighbourhood designed for sustainable mobility translates into a pacified and permeable public space, with exclusive circulation of pedestrians and bicycles, and with perimetral connection to the metro and commuter network that links the neighbourhood with the entire metropolitan area. The public space, 50% of the surface of the area, is conceived as a succession of parks, squares and gardens that, with the recovery of the 1ha industrial warehouse as a central element, make up a large park of up to 5.5 ha. This set of squares and gardens links with the Sagrera Park, extending the green towards the new neighbourhood and creating different natural environments, thematic gardens with different types of vegetation. The urban transformation of the Mercedes enclosure recognizes the architectural history and social significance of the place from the reuse of various existing buildings that have degraded and obsolete infrastructures. The complex is centred around the central warehouse, whose structure is conserved to create a large public square, set to be the heart of the new neighbourhood’s.