Architecture practice Carles Enrich Studio has designed a nine-story fire tower, intended to carry out all types of practices and accommodate a multiplicity of scenarios, in the Vall d'Hebron neighborhood, north of Barcelona, Spain.

This tower also helps to organize and unite the environment in which it is located. On the one hand, its structure is related to the fire station and the market, on the other, its materiality is connected to the residential neighborhoods of Sant Genís and Carmel.
The fire tower designed by Carles Enrich Studio is planned as an open and flexible infrastructure. To do this, a square floor plan was proposed based on a grid of concrete pillars and girders that form a three-dimensional mesh from which 4 empty spaces are obtained intended to recreate various extreme situations with various stairs, doors, wells, windows, and balconies to the outside. exterior for practicing rappelling and vertical rescue.

Its construction is carried out with three materials: concrete for the structure, extruded ceramic pieces for the envelope, and metal elements for the enclosure and balconies. The envelope houses perimeter stairs that connect all the floors without the need to intervene with the activities carried out inside. Finally, the lattice formed by the ceramic pieces of the façade allows interior ventilation and temperature reduction in the warmer months.
 


Firemen tower in Vall d’Hebron by Carles Enrich Studio. Photograph by Adrià Goula.

Project description by Carles Enrich Studio

Infrastructure and landscape
The project for a fire training tower in the Vall d'Hebron posed the challenge of achieving the functional requirements of the activity while accepting the status of a highly visible element in the north of Barcelona. The configuration of the tower helps to link a complex environment made up of different isolated pieces: on the one hand, the vertical structured structure is morphologically related to the fire station and the food market, while its materiality connects landscapely with the neighborhoods of Sant Genís and Carmel thanks to the treatment of the exposed brick façade, which relates with the party walls and housing towers of the surroundings.

The tower is proposed as an open system that allows great flexibility and functional adaptation to accommodate current programmatic requirements and anticipate future changes in use. A 7.15 m square floor plan is proposed based on a grid of concrete pillars and girders that generate a three-dimensional mesh from which 4 empty spaces of 2 x 2 m are obtained on each floor in order to accommodate a multiplicity of spatial situations with maximum adaptability. to the program. The interior spaces recreate extreme building situations to allow firefighters to develop their practices (double and triple spaces, spiral staircases, cat ladders, wells, doors, windows, etc.) while on the outside there are balconies in different positions to enhance rappelling and vertical rescue practices.


Floor plans. Firemen tower in Vall d’Hebron by Carles Enrich Studio.

System and materiality
The choice of materials responds to criteria of landscape integration but also durability, maintenance, resistance to impacts and ease of construction. Only 3 materials are used that allow differentiation and optimization of the construction process: concrete for the structure, ceramic for the envelope and metal elements for the enclosures and balconies.

The structure is configured by a central core formed by 8 concrete pillars measuring 25 x 25 cm, intertwined by girders of the same depth in the shape of a cross, and a second level of 24 pillars on the façade that guarantee the resistance to the horizontal thrust required to rappelling practices. The new tower will extend the fire station’s existing structure by executing a transition slab that coincides with the roof of the maneuvering yard. The envelope is configured as a perimeter circulation space that gives access to all the elements of the façade and that, in turn, allows the different levels to be connected without interfering with the activities that can be carried out inside, promoting a great simultaneity of the practices.


Floor plans. Firemen tower in Vall d’Hebron by Carles Enrich Studio.

The exterior enclosure is designed from the modulation of the 28 x 12 x 18cm extruded ceramic piece, avoiding cuts and losses, placed with the holes seen to form a large lattice. Ceramic has good inertial behavior and low conductivity, helping to regulate the interior temperature, especially in the summer months when the outside temperature can exceed 35º. Finally, some light metal elements are added that make up the cantilevered balconies as well as slabs, stairs and interior railings. These elements are prefabricated in the workshop to speed up placement and allow for future modifications.

Future reuse
Beyond allowing the development of the planned program, the tower acts as a climatic refuge for people and birds. The façade lattice, made up of very deep ceramic pieces, guarantees permanent ventilation of the interior spaces and allows a reduction in the outside temperature without the use of any artificial air conditioning system. Likewise, 12 swift nests are included in one of the façades in order to promote biodiversity and provide shelter to a species of bird that frequents the Collserola mountain range. In this sense, the project is presented as an infrastructure that will last over time, even beyond its current use. The interior compartmentalization and enclosures allow changes to accommodate other programs and prolong the useful life of the tower, which can also be understood as an urban observation point of the Horta-Guinardo district.

More information

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Architects
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Collaborators
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Executive management.- Miguel Rojo – SGS Tecnos.
Structure.- MA+SA.
Facilities.- SJ12.
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Developer
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Barcelona d’Infraestructures Municipals SA, BIMSA.
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Dates
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Project.- 2021.
Work.- 2022 – 2023.
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Location
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Vall d’Hebron, Barcelona, Spain.
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Photography
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Carles Enrich (Barcelona, 1980) graduated at the ETSAB in Barcelona in 2005. From the beginning of his career he has combined his professional work with research, and obtained a Master degree in Theory and Practice of Architectural Projects from the UPC where he is currently a PhD Candidate. His thesis deals with the temporary occupations in the public space in Barcelona.

Associate lecturer in Projects at the ETSAB since 2016. From 2008 to 2017, he taught Projects and Urban Design at the Reus School of Architecture and, in 2015, Projects at the ETSAV. He was also visiting professor in the Extra-Local workshop organised by Columbia GSAPP in 2019, has collaborated on international master’s degrees such as the BIARCH in 2012 and the master’s degree in Restoration at the UPC in 2014, and directed the Vertical Workshop at the UIC Barcelona School of Architecture in 2018.

Carles Enrich’s aim of producing practice-based knowledge led him in 2013 to set up Carles Enrich Studio, where he develops projects that cover the entire habitable territory, from the domestic sphere to landscape. The quality and rigour of the practice’s built work are endorsed by consecutive nominations for the European Union Mies Award (2017, 2019) and the Lisbon Triennale Début Award 2016; the Spanish Architecture and Urban Design Biennale Awards in 2016 and 2018, the FAD Opinion Prize in 2016, and the AJAC Awards in 2012, 2016 and 2018. They were also recognised in the studio’s participation in the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2012, with the exhibition Context in “Architectural Rowers” in the Catalan Pavilion and, in 2016, as part of the exhibition Unfinished, which earned the Spanish Pavilion the Biennale’s Golden Lion.

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