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Verdària
Verdària
MAIAD x CMA 26
- MAIAD 26
Verdària is a speculative development for the old Mercedes-Benz site in Sant Andreu, one in which nature is the primary inhabitant and humans the secondary consideration.
The land has a history of being used: factory, then rental lot, now slated for a new eco-district. Each phase has kept humans central and asked nature to perform around them, as amenity, as backdrop, as proof of sustainability.
Cities have spent the last century treating nature this way. Parks are pockets, trees are street furniture, greenery is something inserted into the urban fabric after the urban fabric is decided. Barcelona is no exception.
Even its most ambitious green proposals, the superblocks, the eco-districts, the green corridors, still begin with the human plan and add nature to it. Verdària asks what happens when that order reverses. What if we designed for nature, as the one we steward, not the one we style?
The proposal is both a recovery of what this land once was, and a rehearsal for what cities will need to become as the climate changes. Green spaces are no longer decoration; they are infrastructure.
We wanted to design one rooted in regeneration rather than extraction. One in which the green is not in service of humans, but humans in service of the green.
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