The commission proposes to think about the construction of new homes, the restoration of Gaudí's chimney, nave and aedicle. The bleaching warehouse, remodeled and restored, will be given new multipurpose uses, which means that the refurbished building must have good performance both from an environmental point of view as well as from a regulatory and equipment one.
The proposal is to build a large basement in the first 4 corridors of the nave, where the air conditioning machinery, the new sanitary services, the machinery for the new elevator between the ground floor and the basement, a staircase and a warehouse are located. The arches which are cut off on Cooperativa Street side are redone and therefore the current roadway is invaded to recover the original location of the nave. A wall is built parallel to the street to recover the amputated space of the nave and the small aedicle.
Due to the impossibility of recovering the original west façade, the project proposes a new façade that has nothing to do with the previous one. It is a translucent and opal glass façade, with an air chamber and a special treatment that will allow us to increase the natural lighting of the original nave, adapting it to the new uses.
The south and east façades are built according to the façades we know of the nave from a photo taken by Joan Bergós (image 16). In order to isolate it acoustically and thermally, without changing its original appearance, it has been decided to fold the roof and the partition of the east façade. A wooden framework is placed on the roof with the flat tile visible below, on top of which a projected insulation with another flat tile on top is placed. The view of the interior and exterior of the roof will be the original but it will be constructively bent.
If you calculate the structure of the parabolic arches of the nave, you can see that the arch resists the loads of the ship built in a very precarious way. The solution to the increase in loads will be to reinforce, by means of stainless-steel plates, the connection of the three planks that make up the wooden arch (image 18). So as to not to modify the image of the arch, we have chosen to embed the plates on both sides of the central plank.
Glass has been thought of as a distinctive element between the elements of the original nave and the new ones. These contemporary materials (translucent glass and transparent opal) differ from the materials of the late 19th century and at the same time reflect and multiply the parts designed by Gaudí.
