RESPIRA

With Pla Superilla, Barcelona is making a great effort to convert vehicle areas into pedestrian-friendly areas. These new pedestrian spaces are an opportunity to implement measures and strategies for decarbonization, improvement of air quality, and microclimate, both with green and innovative and sustainable materials.

R.ES.P.I.R.A. proposes to co-design with the citizens, new elements of urban furniture to improve resilience, and inclusiveness and expand the uses of public space. These elements will be able to decarbonize and improve the air quality at the same time.

The co-design process will define with the users the different functions of the urban elements (sitting, offering shade, eating in the space public, play, play sports,…), also analyzing the new challenges faced by the public space and will provide solutions to:

1. new post-pandemic demands (e.g. teleworking,…);
2. gender perspective (e.g. security, …);
3. inclusiveness of the new pedestrian spaces and Superillas (e.g. accessibility, intergenerational coexistence,…);
4. microclimate control (climate shelters).

To allow maximum flexibility in the design of this new generation of urban elements, digital fabrication will be used, with a combination 3D printing and milling.

Innovative materials with a low carbon footprint will be used:

• wood for milling;
• materials with cellulose or ceramic material for 3D printing.

To decarbonize and purify the air, photocatalytic technology, developed by Noumena, will be used, which allows the surfaces of the elements in urban areas to absorb and neutralize CO2, NOx compounds, and VOCs, turning them into environmentally friendly elements.

R.ES.P.I.R.A. will carry out through a participatory process that will result in a catalog of 8 new co-designed decarbonizing urban elements with two different neighborhood groups:

• The Associació de Veïns i Veïnes del Poblenou, which is addressing the challenges of the new uses of public space (outdoor teleworking, pedestrianization of spaces such as La Superilla)
• The Group Motor de Mujeres de la Xarxa Pla Comunitari de Roquetes (Nou Barris), which brings to the project the perspective of gender and inclusiveness.

The project will be developed according to the following phases:

1) Co-analysis: Workshops will be developed with the two groups in parallel,  co-analyzing the spaces with the neighborhood associations, to understand the demands of uses of the neighbors, analyzed by target groups (children, youth, workers, women, older people, etc.), and how they have changed during the pandemic. In this phase, current climate conditions issues (heat waves, extreme rains that lead to floods, droughts), future scenarios, the objectives of the Plan Climate of BCN’ s objectives, and the plan for the implementation of climate shelter, will also be taken into account;

2) Co-design: following the Methodology of Co-design developed by the IAAC and based on the framework

European CO.CREATE, a catalog of 8 elements will be co-designed, which will decarbonize urban areas and improve air quality and the microclimate (climate shelters);

3) Pilot: One pilot from the catalogue will be tested: the decarbonizing urban element  in an area, will be manufactured and will have an area of at least 3x3m, and will include a climate shelter and integrate new uses of public space.

4) Co-installation: The pilot will be installed in the Les Roquetes neighborhood (Nou Barris), in one of the public spaces indicated by the collective.

5) Co-monitoring: Together with the neighbors, the impacts of the pilot will be assessed, estimating the improvement at the microclimate level and uses of the public space level.