About

In 2015, the Barcelona City Council held an architectural competition for the design of an urban block and a sports facility consisting of an indoor swimming pool and a sports court: Turó de la Peira.

The winning proposal by Anna Noguera and Javier Fernandez frees space from the urban environment prior to the intervention and creates a large garden providing environmental quality. The building is half-buried and minimizes its impact towards the garden through a green gallery that surrounds it.

Urban regenaration

Prior to the intervention, the urban environment was an unstructured space consisting of a sum of residual spaces; a space occupied by a sports court tucked between neighboring buildings, and a pool of obsolete facilities. An urban landscape of hard pavement, concrete walls and total absence of vegetation.

One of the new Turó de la Peira sports centre’s aims is to reclaim the free space inside the block from the old Calderón de la Barca swimming pool to the Turó de la Peira Municipal Sports Track as a green area for local residents. That is why the two old facilities, the swimming pool and the track, have been brought together under the same roof.

Volumetric integration

Turó de la Peira is composed by the overlap of two large spaces: the swimming pool on the ground floor and sports hall on the upper floor.

The building is placed half-buried, adapting the topography and bridging the difference in level between the two streets. The facade to Sant Iscle Street has an urban character, with a corner porch that extends the sidewalk and invites us to enter.

The building minimizes its impact to the garden with a green, surrounding gallery. The volume is one more element of the garden, not mimicking but dialoguing with it.

Energy efficiency

Turó de la Peira was designed under sustainability criteria. And that is because the building was designed for maximum performance: solar orientation, green facade and thermal insulation etc. What is more, it generates renewable energy through photovoltaic panels.

The design of the building has been carried out with passive architecture criteria. Skylights and windows, monitored by sensors, ensure proper cross-ventilation.

The compact and embedded volume minimizes the façade surface avoiding thermal losses. The thermal insulation of the whole enclosure has been selectively treated according to solar orientation.

Efficient systems

The building‘s aerothermal system allows the recovery of heat to produce hot water. The lighting has power control systems depending on the natural lighting.

The photovoltaic panels occupy the entire roof deck and generate 90% of the energy needed to run Turó de la Peira.

The excellent characteristics of the wood in relation to its lifecycle, was one of the reasons for choosing the prefabricated system in laminated wood. It was also assessed due to its good mechanical performance, its lightness and its short construction time.

Green façade

A green gallery surrounds Turó de la Peira protecting it from the sun and creating a bioclimatic space. The access ramp to the sports court runs between the facade and the green mesh where the vines grow.

From the court, the entire green facade is totally perceived through the curtain wall, enjoying its flowering changes according to the time of the year.

Water recycling

A large tank located in the basement collects rain water from the roof for reuse for the entire irrigation of the green façade by means of a hydroponic system.

In the garden’s site development, draining strips at the bottom of the slopes collect rainwater to return it to the water table.