The sixth building of the Diagonal-Besòs Campus of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), located between the municipalities of Barcelona and Sant Adrià de Besòs, is beginning to take shape. The Institut Català del Sòl (Incasòl) has announced the architecture competition for its construction, with a budget of more than 769,000 euros and an execution period of three years and ten months.
The winners of the competition will be responsible for drafting the project ---preliminary project, basic project, and executive project--- and for supervising the works. Interested architects can submit their bids until April 15 and the jury will be formed by Incasòl, the UPC, the Col·legi d'Arquitectes de Catalunya (COAC), and the Sant Adrià City Council.
The building is the result of an agreement signed by the UPC and Incasòl last July. The university transferred the land of the plot to Incasòl under surface rights and the entity will be responsible for constructing and managing the new facility.
A stepped and sustainable building
The future sixth building of the campus will be located between the central rambla and Eduard Maristany street and will have a total built area of 10,670 square meters. It will have a volume with two heights, resulting in a stepped building: a ground floor plus six floors high on Eduard Maristany and another ground floor plus three floors high on the central rambla.
The competition brief stipulates that the building must be highly sustainable, in line with the other buildings on campus. A project for the installation of renewable energy use must be included, and proposals that include passive and bioclimatic systems in their energy strategy will be valued. The aim is also for it to be a flexible building in terms of uses and space distribution, as it will host research centers and units of the UPC itself, focused on green energy and biomedical engineering.
With an investment of approximately 20 million euros, the new equipment aims to be a pole of attraction for research centers and groups of the Diagonal-Besòs Campus, in addition to reinforcing its role as a driver of social and economic transformation in the area. In September 2016, activity began on this campus, with 3,500 students and 400 teachers and researchers from the Escola d'Enginyeria de Barcelona Est (EEBE), the main engine of this space. It offers seven bachelor's degrees, five master's degrees, and four doctorates, focused on biomedical, electrical, industrial electronics and automation, energy, mechanical, chemical, and materials engineering. In addition to teaching activity, the EEBE has 41 research groups and centers linked to this campus.