Thursday, March 28

A rooftop garden and other ideas from the New European Bauhaus


Terrats d’en Xifré, an award-winning project that converts the rooftop of 11 buildings in a block of Barcelona into a sustainable garden. / Mata Alta Studio

The EU rewards initiatives that make the change towards the sustainability of cities “tangible” in a new social movement

Framed within the European Green Deal, the European Union wants to show that it can be innovative and, furthermore, sustainable from a cultural, creative and social point of view. That is why, since last year, what is known as the New European Bauhaus has been under way, which also has some annual prizes of which the second call has just been announced and in whose first edition six Spanish projects were winners.

Our country won four awards in the first category and another two in the Emerging Stars category. All of them give a good idea of ​​what is being rewarded with this new initiative.

Thus, one of the prizes went to the
Azotea de Xifré, a project by the Catalan studio MataAlta. It is a set of 11 buildings of the same property in Barcelona, ​​whose roof was renaturalized, that is, converted into a green space for communal use.

Being protected buildings, it was necessary to respect part of their architecture and composition. Thus, the original pavement of the roof was polished and, on top of it, different materials were placed, including organic substrate. The irregularity of the relief, typical of these ancient structures, was used to include irrigation systems at different depths, which made it possible to have a very varied planting on the roof, which ultimately combines orchards and gardens.

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In addition, it has recreational spaces: recreation areas, clotheslines and different terraces accessible to the entire community of neighbors. Among its facilities, the rainwater collection systems, the generation of electricity with photovoltaic panels and a composting area from organic waste stand out; everything for the self-sufficiency of the green roof itself.

The work of
Air Gardenswho makes vertical gardens, or the project
The Factory of All Life, a community space in rural areas located in the old Asland cement factory, in Los Santos de Maimona (south of Extremadura). This factory has been used to refurbish it and carry out different social and cultural initiatives there: summer cinema, artistic and professional workshops, a meeting point for cycles around different themes, etc.

What is the New European Bauhaus

these awards, as the Union itself explains, aims to promote all those ideas that raise the European Green Deal to a cultural and creative dimension. That is, to demonstrate how sustainable innovation brings tangible and positive experiences to our daily life, improving it and transforming spaces into more beautiful, sustainable and inclusive places. In the words of the President of the European Union, Ursula Von der Leyen, “the New European Bauhaus combines the broad vision of the European Green Deal with tangible changes on the ground.”

To recognize these achievements, last year some twenty projects from all over the continent were awarded. For its second edition, in 2022, it seeks to reward new examples that serve as inspiration, reflecting the values ​​of this social movement: sustainability, inclusion and aesthetics. The applicants compete in four different categories: reconnecting with nature; recover the sense of belonging; prioritize the places and people who need it most; shape a circular industrial ecosystem and support life cycle thinking.

In each of the categories there are two parallel lines of competition. On the one hand, projects that have already been completed are rewarded (in this case, the winners receive 30,000 euros and the finalists 20,000). Meanwhile, the ‘New Bauhaus Rising Stars’ category is for ideas from young talents aged 30 and under. In this case the amount of the prizes is reduced by half.

These awards propose changes that improve the daily lives of Europeans and that people can see and touch in buildings and public spaces. In fact, the name comes precisely from ‘Bauhaus’, an artistic movement born in 1919 that sought functionality in everyday life through design and creativity.

Not just for the artistic elites

Contrary to that ‘school’ that promoted the transformation towards modernity, through the work of artisans, architects and artists, now the challenge of the European Union is that all citizens can participate. In addition, and as a great difference from the movement at the beginning of the last century, compared to cement and steel, now it is committed to exploring materials based on nature, which are produced in a sustainable way, as well as developing low-carbon production solutions for all the materials. This is true for construction as well as for fashion, design, furniture, transport or energy.

One of the challenges is that the projects that are inspired by this movement can be scalable, however small they may be in their original conception. In addition, the transfer and adaptation of these projects to other environments is not only a matter of size, but rather the European Union wants them to have influence beyond our borders, with the aim of disseminating its principles of sustainability, inclusion and aesthetics at a global level. world.


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