BAAS and h3o architects to renovate the old Santa Creu hospital

BAAS Arquitectura is an architecture practice founded in 1994 in Barcelona by architect Jordi Badia (Barcelona, 1961). He graduated from the Barcelona School of Architecture (ETSAB) in 1989. Between 1989 and 1993, he worked alongside architect Tonet Sunyer before establishing his own practice.

Since its foundation, BAAS Arquitectura has worked on projects of different scales and programmes, including residential buildings, offices, educational facilities, healthcare buildings, cultural spaces and interventions in architectural heritage. Its work is characterised by a careful consideration of the urban context, the use of materials and the relationship between architecture and public space. The restoration and adaptation of existing buildings to new uses also play an important role in the studio's practice.

Among its best-known works are the Can Framis Museum in Barcelona, which received the 2009 City of Barcelona Award and the FAD Opinion Award; the conversion of the former Oliva Artés factory into a branch of the Barcelona History Museum (MUHBA); the renovation of the Alta Diagonal office building; and the FAD headquarters in Barcelona.

Internationally, one of its most notable projects is the Faculty of Radio and Television at the University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland (2017), designed in collaboration with GRUPA 5 Architekci and Małeccy Biuro Projektowe. The building received the Brick Award 2020 and was shortlisted for the 2019 European Union Prize for Contemporary Architecture – Mies van der Rohe Award. More recent projects include the Llull 122 building and the Vall d'Hebron Research Centre (VHIR), the latter developed in collaboration with ESPINET/UBACH.

Alongside his architectural practice, Jordi Badia teaches in the Department of Architectural Design at ETSAB, where he has been a professor since 2001. He has also collaborated with universities in Hong Kong, Ljubljana, Toulouse and Zurich. He has written for the newspaper ARA and served as editor of the architecture blog HIC Arquitectura.

In 2012, together with Félix Arranz, he curated VOGADORS, the exhibition representing Catalonia and the Balearic Islands at the 13th Venice Architecture Biennale. His career brings together architectural practice, teaching and the dissemination of architecture, with a particular interest in the relationship between buildings, the city and its inhabitants.

H3o Architects is a Barcelona-based architecture firm formed by Adrià Orriols, Joan Gener and Miquel Ruiz. Their practice promotes innovative and speculative designs in the fields of architecture and urbanism, facing the challenges of contemporary society. Climate change, social responsibility and the hybridization of human and non-human realities are at the core of each project.

In the field of theory, the studio investigates the membrane as the epidermis of architecture and its social, political and ecological implications. Among its projects are the conversion of the Convent of the Poor Clares into the new library in Arenys de Mar, the 155-unit housing block at Kop-Dakpark (Rotterdam), the winner of the Europan 15 Rotterdam Award, the renaturalization of the square in Castell d'Aro, and the new residence for the elderly in Es Migjorn Gran, Menorca, all of them ongoing projects. One of their latest projects was the ephemeral installation “Nomad Assembly" in the Mercat dels Encants, which was the central stage of Model.

Joan Gener González. (b. February 8th, 1989) Master in Architecture at the School of Architecture of Barcelona, ETSAB, UPC, with an excellent qualification in his Final Thesis. He was an exchange student at the EPFL, where he followed project courses in Lausanne and Basel with Harry Gugger from Herzog & de Meuron. He collaborates with a two-year scholarship in the Urban Planning Department of the ETSAB.

He has worked in Geneva and also in Barcelona with Enric Ruiz-Geli on the project for the NOU BULLI  in Roses.

From 2014 to 2017, he worked with the prestigious chef Albert Adrià on developing new projects in all stages: conceptualization, budget, management and execution.

Among his works, there is the showroom of La Cala, the Bodega 1900  and the Creative Workshop of el Barri. Being his main work, the coordination of the restaurant ENIGMA by RCR Architects.

Adrià Orriols Camps. (b. February 19 th, 1989) Master with Honours in Architecture at the School of Architecture of Barcelona, ETSAB, UPC. Since 2012, he has worked at José Antonio Martínez Lapeña and Elias Torres studio. Since 2014, he has been responsible for the projects of the studio, among which are:

– CASA VICENS Restoration and rehabilitation into the museum, by Antonio Gaudí, World Heritage – 2014/2017
– MURALLAS DE PALMA Prince’s Bastion Restoration
– TORRES DEL TEMPLE Restoration, Palma de Mallorca
– Coverage project for the Ronda de Dalt
– Design of Lluis Clotet exhibition. National Architecture Award
– Plaça de les Glòries Competition, 2014, finalist
– REHABILITATION OF THE OLD BORSÍ, 2018, 1st prize
– Palma Mallorca Seafront Promenade Competition, 1st prize

He has collaborated in several ETSAB publications: Bases for the Project I -II and Landscape Architecture 1977-1995. He won the 1st prize for Pasatjes Metropolitans.

Miquel Ruiz Planella. (b. 1990) Master with Honours in Architecture at the School of Architecture of Barcelona, ETSAB, UPC. He wins the Best Final Thesis Award, ETSAB, UPC, for the academic year 2015-2016. Therefore, he participates in Archiprix and the UNESCO-UIA & MIDO student design prize for responsible architecture. He studied the 5th course of architecture at TUB, Technische Universität Berlin and also has Postgraduate studies in Business and Administration at UPF.

In the practice field, he has collaborated with “Jordi Garcés-de Seta-Bonet” on, among others, the competition of “el Salón de Reinos” for the Museo del Prado. He also worked at Jaime Prous Architects. He has assisted the Department of Urban Planning, DUOT, ETSAB, and UPC in tasks as an external.

His interest in the theoretical aspects of architecture led him to get a scholarship to collaborate at the Theory Department in ETSAB with Professor Toni Ramon. With him, he later worked on the “Observatory of Theatres at Risk”. He was also invited to Bauhaus Dessau by Roger Bundschuh to talk about Clubbing Architecture.

Within the framework of the Master's in Theory and History of Architecture at ETSAB, UPC, Miquel Ruiz’s TFM research, "Entre dos Mundos: fuentes e imaginarios del espacio como Membrana", received a Cum Laude and delves into the concerns of H3O’s practice.