The Can Ricart municipal sports complex is a building located in the heart of the south of the Raval district, an area where important activities have been carried out in recent years. The equipment is significant for the revitalisation of the neighbourhood in its traditionally more degraded sector, and must contribute to the integration of all the social sectors that live in the area through its use in sports and wellness activities. The building completes the block between the Rambla del Raval and the Els Horts de Sant Pau Gardens. Architecturally, the project's strategy was based on pre-existing conditions that made it particularly complex, as it had to integrate two big enough buildings, such as the Raval pavilion by the architect Jordi Farrando (from 1989) and the industrial 19th century building of Can Ricart, presumably by the master builder Josep Fontserè. The main effort of the architects has been to make it a functionally compact and functionally coherent set, which volumetrically maintains the reading of the three diverse bodies that make it up: the two existing buildings and the new construction that contains the swimming pool, formally autonomous. The Can Ricart building, which was in a rather bad state, has been rehabilitated in the spirit of the original in its most defining characteristics. The façade by Josep Fontserè has been rehabilitated, recovering the stucco’s original colours, and a double-height central space where the Ricart family used to have their contracting room has been exposed. This space has been rehabilitated with sensitivity and a certain discretion. A skylight that had been over the central space has been recovered. On the rest of the façades, more abused by the multiple interventions carried out over the years to annex and demolish buildings around them, the work consisted of recovering the original order of holes and giving a unifying patina that allows you to subtly see the wounds of history on its walls. The new building is austere in materials and formally contained. The façade is made of exposed concrete, which has been given a texture that wants to be a tribute to the beginnings of the textile industry in Catalonia in this area of the city.

La Rambla de Sant Francesc és el gran espai cívic del centre de Vilafranca. El projecte cobreix una obra traumàtica per a la ciutat, la construcció d'un aparcament soterrani que implicà la tala de tot l'arbrat, que donava una forta identitat a l'espai. Simbologia, centralitat, memòria i funcionalitat són estratègies complementàries aplicades al disseny urbà per establir complicitats de la ciutadania amb aquest espai públic. Simbologia i centralitat. Evocar un retall del paisatge de vinya en un exercici d'abstracció que potencia la vocació de Vilafranca com a capital del vi. La singularització a nivell compositiu refor?a la centralitat en la percepció ciutadana. Memòria i funcionalitat. Reurbanitzar un lloc on l'imaginari col?lectiu s'ha sedimentat al llarg dels temps i ha patit una desfiguració traumàtica, establint una continu?tat perceptiva, dotant-lo de part de la seva memòria, l'arbrat. Potenciar la permeabilitat per convertir-lo en un espai de màxima polivalència i intensitat d'usos.

The development of the streets around the old Mercat del Born aims to respond to the needs and potential that the activation of the renovated building as a Born Cultural Centre will generate in the public space. Connectivity and permeability. The traffic on Comerç Street in its section in front of the Mercat has been eliminated. A pedestrian space is set up in continuity with the rest of the neighbourhood to the limits of the Ciutadella Park. Centrality and identity. A gap has been created around the building to respond to its monumentality. The pavement is the connecting element with the history and memory of the place. Flexibility and functionality. The project has been defined with the intention of promoting the maximum diversity of uses. With the launch of BornCC, existing uses will intensify, and new ones will emerge. The open space, the unique platform and the square’s character enhance this diversity.

The discovery of a Roman site at the bottom of a municipal building, a Domus on the edge of the wall, has made this adaptation project necessary to make it open to visitors simultaneously with the normal use of the building. The space containing the site has been turned into a museum, and the ground floor has been redistributed to configure the spaces for approaching the site from the building's lobby. Spaces that have a dual use: circulation and building services during the week, and vestibule of the site when it is open to the public. The approach takes place through a sequence of vestibules that refers to the system of articulation of the main spaces of the domus and villas. The halls, with sensibly square proportions and varying heights, are connected by thick, low doorways that refer to the massiveness of Roman architecture. This sequence of spaces defines a circular route, with a strong theatric character, which incorporates elements of anticipation of the site's content. Each hall is located on a different stratum (outside the wall-wall-intervallum) which is manifested in different pavements and in bas-reliefs of Roman characters on the walls, accompanying the visitor. Through stairs in the dark, like a tunnel, you can access a longitudinal loft like a lookout, raised above the site. The entire space disappears, painted black, revealing the archaeological remains and a large mural that had been on the ceiling of one of the rooms. The loft is an enclosure with glass facings on the walls, floor and ceiling, which multiply the perception and expand the space. The walls and floor hide parts of the site and interpretive elements on display that appear behind the glass in a game of illusionism when the lighting is turned on.

A pavilion on a terrace to complement the uses of a small apartment. A second room and a chamber-studio. The pavilion is placed transversally on the terrace, with elongated proportions, and segments it, generating a sequence of interior and exterior spaces that redefines the way of living. The alignment of the openings generates a direct visual relationship between spaces. The enclosed terrace between the apartment and the pavilion works as an interior courtyard. A controlled, private, intimate space. The form and materiality are determined by the condition of ephemeral and removable construction and by the limitations of transport and assembly. The construction is in wood, a system of portals and panels, all forming an autonomous and overlapping volume. The compositional relationship maintains the coherence between structure and closure. Inside, the low stripe has a continuous, functional and domestic finish. Above this, there is the prominence of wood, that is, the apparent structure as the essence of the pavilion.