The Ecoenergy Power Plant #1, belonging to the company DH Ecoenergías, has been designed by FRPO Rodriguez and Oriol Arquitectos. The thermal district heating plant is located in Palencia, an inland city northeast of Madrid, in Spain.

The company is a benchmark within the energy and environmental transition, so its architecture must symbolize this paradigm shift, showing how renewable energies improve the public health of our cities. This plant will supply more than 3,000 homes, serving the new district heating network.
The architecture studio FRPO Rodriguez and Oriol Arquitectos has designed the new Ecoenergía Central as a transparent and pedagogical infrastructure for medium-sized cities that are becoming benchmarks of a new sustainable urbanity, sustainable communities, ecological corridors, and cradle-to-cradle designs.

The plant, located on the periphery of the city, since the urban centers are already built and densely populated, allows architects to focus on places that grow without a center, without urbanity, and architectural or landscape character.


DH Ecoenergy Plant #1 by FRPO Rodriguez y Oriol Arquitectos. Photograph by Luis Asín.
 

Project description by FRPO Rodriguez and Oriol Arquitectos

The Ecoenergy Power Plant #1 for the company DH Ecoenergías must be an icon and a reference within the energy and environmental transition. Therefore, its architecture must symbolize this shift of paradigm. A transparent infrastructure that shows, as part of its pedagogical role, how renewable energies are improving the public health in our cities. The plant will serve the new District Heating network for the city of Palencia, supplying ecological hot water to more than 3000 housing units.

Energy / Infrastructures: the scale of the collective
Medium-sized cities have become the spearhead of a new sustainable urbanity, which is committed to soft mobility, energy communities, ecological corridors, cradle-to-cradle design, and advanced architecture.


DH Ecoenergy Plant #1 by FRPO Rodriguez y Oriol Arquitectos. Photograph by Luis Asín.

Transparency / Architecture: the scale of the disciplinary
This project must be an icon and a reference within the energy and environmental transition. Therefore, its architecture must symbolize this shift of paradigm. A transparent infrastructure that shows, as part of its pedagogical role, how renewable energies are improving the public health in our cities.

Periphery / City: the scale of the cultural
The periphery of contemporary cities is increasingly marked by the presence of large logistic facilities that serve the gentrified dense city and the new life of teleworking -in the city and outside it-, lacking urban architectural or landscape character. The architecture of the emblematic places, the centers of our cities, the monuments, and big public buildings has already been built. Today we architects need to focus our attention on places that grow without a center, without urbanity, without character, without architecture... it is a generational task and an opportunity for our cities that we must not miss.

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Architects
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FRPO Rodriguez y Oriol Arquitectos. Lead architects.- Pablo Oriol, Fernando Rodríguez.
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Project team
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Adrián Sánchez, Mikhail Frantzusov.
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Collaborators
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Consultants.- Apricot Ingeniería, Jesus Eguren, Juan Tur, Mecanismo Ingenieria.
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Client
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DH Ecoenergías.
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Area
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1,960 sqm.
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Dates
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Project start.- 09.2019.
Building start.- 07.2021.
Building end.- 09.2022.
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Location
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Palencia, Spain.
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Photography
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Luis Asín.
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FRPO (2008) is an architecture office based in Madrid directed by Fernando Rodriguez and Pablo Oriol, internationally recognized with the Architectural Record Design Vanguard (New York, 2012), Europe 40 under 40 (2009) and Bauwelt Preis (Berlin, 2007) awards, among others. Their work has also received prestigious awards, such as the selection for the Architectural Review Emerging Architecture Awards (2019), the FAD Awards (2019), the Spanish Pavilion at the Venice Biennale (2016, Golden Lion), the nomination for the Mies van der Rohe Awards (2015), the IX and XII Spanish Biennials of Architecture and Urbanism (2007 and 2013), or the V and IX Ibero-American Biennials of Architecture and Urbanism (2006 and 2014).

FRPO’s work has been widely published, and its proposals have been disseminated through articles, lectures, and frequent exhibitions, both nationally and internationally.

Trained as architects at the ETSAM in Madrid, at the IIT in Chicago and the TU Berlin, Pablo Oriol and Fernando Rodriguez are professors in the Department of Architectural Design at the ETSAM UPM, as well as regular guests at various national and foreign universities.

Fernando Rodríguez holds a PhD in Architecture since 2015. He studied architecture at UPM ETSAM in Madrid and at the Technische Universität Berlin, between 1995 and 2003. He has collaborated in MVRDV and has been Invited Critic with Kees Christiaanse at the TU Berlin. He worked as a project architect for Abalos & Herreros in 2004. He is a lecturer at the Architectural Design Department of UPM ETSAM and at the IE University.

Pablo Oriol studied architecture at UPM ETSAM and the IIT College of Architecture in Chicago, between 1995 and 2005. He was Cultural Activities Curator for the General Department of Architecture of the Ministry of Public Works for the ETSAM and the Cervantes Institute between 1999 and 2002. He was part of the redaction team of the magazine Arquitectura Viva in 2006. He is PhD candidate and lecturer at the Architectural Design Department of UPM ETSAM and at the IE University.

In 2005 Fernando Rodriguez and Pablo Oriol were founding partners of Nolaster Oficina de Arquitectura, where they developed their professional activity until 2007. In 2008 they established FRPO as a natural evolution of their previous professional experiences.
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