First talks of teachers to their disciples were made under the shelter of a tree. Thus, the tree was the first school, the first classroom. The project consists of the design and construction of a prototype module for environmental education classrooms, a learning and discovery space, to be installed in different locations of the metropolitan area of Barcelona park’s network. It is proposed that it is also a habitat for some species of animals, insects, invertebrates, birds… It must be an open space to the outside; it is necessary that one could see the trees from the classroom, to perceive the light and feel the climate.
Project Name: AULA K – Modular classroom for environmental education
Finalist Architizer A+Awards Concepts-Plus-Architecture+Learning
Architect’s Firm: BCQ arquitectura barcelona
Website: http://bcq.es/
Contact email: mail@bcq.es
Project Location: Can Zam Park, c/Víctor Hugo 70, 08924 Santa Coloma de Gramenet, Barcelona. Spain
Completion Year: 2018
Lead architects: David Baena, Toni Casamor, Manel Peribáñez, Maria Taltavull
Design Team/Collaborators Vanessa Díaz, Petra Boulescu
Photography credits: Marcela Grassi
Client: AMB Àrea Metropolitana de Barcelona – City of Santa Coloma de Gramenet
Construction: Constructora de Calaf, SAU
Structure: Fustes Borniquel
MEP Building services: AIA Instal·lacions Arquitectòniques
Built area: 110,46 m2
Public space area: 58 m2
The building is planned as a prefabricated module, flexible and as economical as possible, capable of responding to the different requirements of each municipality for environmental education. Therefore, three modules are proposed (service, classroom and pergola) that can be combined in different configurations to respond to the requests of each site or the programming of activities. The prototype built at Can Zam Park consists of the service and classroom modules. It can be adapted to any location and orientation and has been built with industrialized systems to optimize time and cost. Its construction, with prefabricated wooden modules, is largely carried out in the workshop. The assembly of the module on the site can be done in a few weeks.
The inverted sloped roofs allow solar panel installation and rainwater collection. This water channeled returns to underground irrigating the vegetation planted just next to it.
Some animals and plants of the park will live thanks to this small pavilion.
BCQ arquitectura barcelona
BCQ arquitectura barcelona strives to make cities more human, sustainable and efficient creating architectural and urban projects that combine sensitivity and intelligence with the environment. The final goal of creating projects is to make them real. For this reason, BCQ considers the quality of their construction techniques, materials and buildings to be of utmost importance.
David Baena and Toni Casamor set up BCQ in 1995. Subsequently architects Manel Peribáñez and Maria Taltavull joined as partners. Today BCQ arquitectura barcelona has become an international firm specializing in architecture, landscape and urbanism projects.
Their founders have developed wide teaching experience in national and international schools of architecture such as the ETSAV-UPC and ESARQ-UIC in Barcelona, the ETH in Zürich, the Strelka Institute in Moscow and the McGill University in Montreal, Canada.
BCQ is invited regularly to speak about their work in venues and media in Europe and America and their projects have been issued in numerous national and international publications. In 2013, their work was showcased in Berlin and Frankfurt under the exhibition Architektonische Landschaften – Architectural Landscapes.
BCQ has recently won the First Prize Ciutat de Barcelona and the First Prize Catalunya Construcció for the work Sant Gervasi-Joan Maragall Library. In 2013 the Wastewater Treatment Plant in Alt Maresme received the MIPIM Awards 2013 Best Industrial & Logistics Development.
Monographic books on their work are Reflections (2008), TC Cuadernos vol.105 – BCQ BAENA CASAMOR Arquitectura 1996-2012 and Library of Light (2014).
