Ca n’Anglada is a lively, dynamic, and active neighborhood with great potential, but it currently suffers from a severe lack of social cohesion, which has led to significant stigmatization. The urban reality of the northern area, where housing blocks are concentrated, is characterized by high density and a substantial migrant population. To address this situation, a process of “de-densification” of some housing blocks began in 2006. As a result, four plaza-courtyards were created. The vast majority of the ground floors facing these plazas are residential. The project, as a preliminary study, aims to define these open spaces resulting from the de-densification process. Thus, we start from a context of high social and urban complexity that requires a transversal, holistic, and multiscalar approach. The challenge, therefore, is how we can transform this complex reality through urban space to improve the neighborhood’s livability and the quality of life of its residents.
Intervention strategies
Following a participatory diagnosis, the main objectives to be addressed are: promoting coexistence in the neighborhood, creating new spaces and uses for the plazas, dignifying the spaces, and knitting the neighborhood together as a whole.
Thus, the set of strategies forms a proposal that is as comprehensive and inclusive as possible, aiming to regenerate the Ca n’Anglada neighborhood and transform it into:
Therefore, the project is approached as a single space that will become a new green lung and a new centrality for both the Ca n’Anglada neighborhood and the rest of the city of Terrassa, strengthening the most promising connections through Jacint Elías Street and breaking down the barriers of collective imagination. Besides public space, the strategies also consider the need to intervene in the built environment, addressing the deficiencies in construction quality and energy poverty affecting many of these homes.
Proposal definition
A new central space on a single-level platform pacifies the area and reorganizes the open space, connecting with the rest of the city through a new bike lane. The four plazas are conceived as a single interconnected area through public space, but also through some reprogrammed ground floors. Both these ground floors and the new low-rise buildings constructed within the plazas accommodate new uses that define the character of each space: intercultural, care, sports, and cultural. Through management entities already existing in the neighborhood and city, these open spaces will be activated, responding to existing needs due to saturation of certain neighborhood facilities and enlivening public space. The new buildings also allow for resizing the different open spaces.
Program of uses Area 1: Plaça del Pagès
A multicultural and dynamic space. In this area, given the current size and characteristics of the space, the most significant intervention is proposed to reverse the current appropriation dynamics of the public space.
1. Community space, multipurpose room for meetings and gatherings that neighborhood organizations can use.
2. Headquarters of a city-based entity to attract people from outside the neighborhood to increase social diversity.
3. Facility promoting cooperativism and local entrepreneurship linked to the civic center, developing training and advisory programs on cooperativism and social and solidarity economy; as well as job insertion and employment in the neighborhood, leveraging planned urban and housing interventions in this area.
4. Ca n’Anglada market, to recover this lost facility due to de-densification, with a renewed and contemporary vision promoting interculturality through gastronomy and food.
5. Women’s center, a multipurpose space for women, with meeting rooms and a large hall for cultural activities (dance, theater, etc.).
Programa de usos Ámbito 2: Concòrdia
Espacio de carácter cultural, más central y abierto al eje Jacint Elías, propuesto como un espacio atractivo para el barrio y la ciudad, capaz de acoger una programación cultural diversa en el espacio público.
6. Servicios de vivienda, punto de servicios municipales para la vivienda desde el cual gestionar y coordinar las intervenciones en las viviendas, así como las subvenciones y ayudas a la rehabilitación y las acciones que propone el proyecto.
7 and 8. Espacios para jóvenes e infantes vinculados al casal gestionado por el Grupo de Colonias de Ca n’Anglada y al Espacio Bit del Distrito Joven.
10. Coberta de Ca n’Anglada, un espacio sociocultural destinado al público juvenil e infantil. La prolongación hacia el eje Jacint Elías podrá acoger otros eventos puntuales como mercados y ferias de artesanía u otros productos.
Program of uses Area 3: Constància
A space with a focus on care, specifically for elderly people and the youngest children. It is proposed as the quietest zone, where more contained leisure activities can take place.
9. Senior center, a municipal facility dedicated to the care of both elderly people and the youngest children in the neighborhood. A more static and calm space that does not create conflicts with neighbors.
Other areas
The gardens are proposed as a private communal-use space that can be managed by existing facilities (such as the civic center, which already has a community garden program through the City’s Social Services).
Program of uses Area 4: Prudència
A sports space promoting an alternative sport to football, in this case basketball. A pergola in the southern passage marks an area that includes other small sports facilities such as ping-pong tables.
11. Open basketball court, to promote other sports like basketball (which tend to generate fewer conflicts with the ground floors of nearby homes compared to football).
