A project to eliminate single-use packaging; initiatives focused on sustainable mobility, ideas that transform materials, and even proposals linked to accompanying elderly people to combat loneliness. All of them are being developed at the new facility Barcelona Circular (BAC), which already operates as an innovation hub linked to the circular economy, conceived as a key element to advance in the transformation of industry.
Thus, with more than 3,400 square meters in Bon Pastor, the center wants to become a fundamental actor on the path towards Industry 4.0, in a process that directly links to the implementation of new circular economy models, with a basic idea: the future of industry will be sustainable, or it will not be. To achieve this, the BAC has been launched as a "laboratory for entrepreneurship and creation teams," in the words of the center's director, Mariona González.
And how is a team laboratory concentrated? In the case of BAC, through a degree linked to entrepreneurship, hand in hand with the Faculty of Business of Mondragon Unibertsitatea, of the Mondragon Corporation, and of TeamLabs. Through this alliance, the center, promoted by Barcelona Activa, hosts 400 students, from non-regulated courses but also from the official university degree in Entrepreneurial Leadership and Innovation (LEINN) and the master's in Talent Strategy Management.
These training itineraries represent a channel for young participants towards entrepreneurship, and facilitate their conversion into co-founders of innovative companies. And it does so by fostering collaborative work: "We shy away from individual entrepreneurship, we always do it as a team," summarizes González during an inauguration day that has filled the center with young people and authorities, including the mayor, Jaume Collboni, and the president of the Mondragon Corporation, Pello Rodríguez.
Thus, the center aims to act as a circular innovation hub, fostering talent through training and learning by doing: learning while doing. To promote entrepreneurship, the center also offers incubation and acceleration programs for projects, and 50 coworking spaces, in addition to "a digital transformation workshop, a materials transformation workshop, and a prototyping workshop," with all kinds of machines, from 3D printers to cutters. Furthermore, the BAC operates in connection with the innovative ecosystem; the Catalonia Waste Cluster, the Tech Tourism Cluster, the Precious Plastic Association, and the Eix Besòs Business Association have already set up in the center.
The BAC is born with the vocation not only of being a neuralgic point of the circular economy and industrial transformation, but also of being "an example that the circular economy has a future, is profitable, and generates jobs," Collboni proclaimed. In this context, the BAC has begun to operate as a new key piece within the economic model that the city pursues. In fact, it is one of the Economic Activity Hubs promoted by the City Council, with new forms of economy with purpose that expand throughout the various neighborhoods of the city.
With the first one inaugurated in Palo Alto as XRLab, focused on the audiovisual sector, the city plans to open two more: one focused on the care economy, and the Barcelona Urban Innovation (BUI), to rethink the urbanism and architecture of the Barcelona of the future. Through these decentralized innovation hubs, the City Council aims to redefine the city's economic map, to accelerate the growth and positioning of sectors called to transform the economy.
Industrial identity and circular economy made into a building
The location of the BAC is not a trivial matter. Situated between Bon Pastor and Sant Andreu, a stone's throw from La Maquinista and well connected to the future Sagrera, the center wants to become a "gearing point," according to González. With its launch in what some would call the periphery, it reconfigures and stretches the city's economic map, towards a neighborhood marked by its industrial trajectory. This identity linked to industrial activity is key for a Bon Pastor that wants to continue playing this role in the city, as the mayor has highlighted: "We want to be a city that mixes uses, that combines housing, commercial activity with economic opportunities," like those offered by the new center.The circular economy is embodied in the very building that houses the BAC. The property, transformed by the design of Marta Badia, from Blossom, 4RQ Arquitectura and the ConstruNext team, is in itself an example of a circular economy, which is visible in the materials and finishes. "The plasterboard is not painted not out of carelessness, but because it is easier to recycle it afterwards than if it is painted," explains Joaquín Frigola from ConstruNext.
Circularity has been taken into account in the materials used and also those removed from the building for its renovation: the old glass was given to a bottle manufacturer, generating a circuit in which what would be waste becomes raw material.
The building, owned by the municipality, thus seeks to eradicate the concept of waste, through systems that follow natural cycles of materials, renewable energies and detachable designs, which materialize even in small elements such as lamps, made of recycled plastic and 3D printed. Every detail counts in a building called to be an example and cradle of projects that transform industry with the circular economy as a starting point, hand in hand with young talent looking for channels to unleash their potential.
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