Nova Bocana, Port of Barcelona | Marina Vela

Project for the new facade of the Dock Building, the Marina Seca and the Mirador Building

The transformation of Barcelona’s waterfront, especially the Nova Bocana, is formed by a sequence of interventions that generate a new public space open to the public. In particular, two new spaces are defined; the Dique Building with its pedestrian promenade, and of which the Mirador Building forms part, as the culmination of the new promenade.

The Dique Building, more than 600 meters in length, is understood as a unitary element on a metropolitan scale, corresponding more to an infrastructure than a building. The materials of its main façade, based on rocks extracted from the dredging of the port itself, act as a formal support for the project.  Stone gabions are arranged rhythmically to form panels that form a ventilated façade that conceals parking areas and various port services inside. On the seaside, the seawall presents large rocks that break the waves, on the other side, the port side, smaller stones form a light lattice that levitates offering a set of transparencies. Above, a public promenade allows the city to enter the sea.

On the other hand, the Mirador Building is located in a very unique site, at the end of a new promenade, which is understood as a new end, not only of the port, but of the city itself. The Mirador Building is also an infrastructure, in this case a bridge.  A bridge that does not save a topographical feature, but frames a landscape as the end of the route. Under the bridge there is a large shaded public space porch; above the bridge, a lookout terrace and hanging from it, a restaurant floor. Formally, it is defined by its post-tensioned concrete structure that saves important spans.  It is clad with slotted precast concrete panels, which, thanks to their shape and texture, acquire a stony appearance in keeping with all the rocks that make up port infrastructures.