The Arriola & Fiol Urban Civic Projects will identify conflict areas in the city toward urban neighbourhoods and recommend practical solution to transform this area into civic outdoor rooms. It will establish a new project for urban regeneration, founded on the principles of design excellence, social well-being and environmental responsibility within a viable economic and legislative framework.
For us public space is the leading issue of urban form. Public space as a combined structure of different streets and squares is the essence, the substance of coexistence, interaction and the redundancy that shared life brings.
Designing the structure of spaces for the mobility, leisure and representation that link spaces of activity is what traditional urban planning is all about. When we speak of « public spaces » we have in mind the scale of the urban whole.
The connective surface of cities, its interstitial tissue of roads and paths, gardens and squares, is of what is most structured of urban space. Public spaces proclaim the central role of interdependence. With our projects we solve topographical difficulties and thematic complexity into civic encounters.
Not all public space entails urban quality just because it has been successfully organised. A project can value the characteristics of the place and can express landscaping or utilitian qualities without managing to give material form to any notion of urbanity. Civic identity in the dissolution of the individual place in the collective milieu, in pure citizenship. Public space is the condition for the city’s existence.
Creation of a framework which would underpin the successful development and implementation of key catalytic projects within an urban, civic context.
Catalytic projects are defined as those projects which have a transformational effect on the neighbourhood within which they are situated.
This framework is the “A&F 10 Principles”. What is common to each of the ten Principles is the focus on the importance of site, place, topography and natural systems in all projects, no matter what scale.
Coupled with this intrinsic understanding of a place, is the need for the development of flexible building typologies that have the potential to adapt and morph over time, responding to the changing needs of the people who use the space.
An A&F urban civic project is a city scale project that is intended to be constructed, it is not simply a masterplan, but a project that when built will radically transform an area. People will be drawn to the area, they will like to live there as it is a beautiful, comfortable and respected place.
There are three constitutive elements that make up an A&F urban civic project: the buildings, the streets-infrastructure and the open space. It is always a hybrid project and its program is place specific, defined for each particular site, neighborhood or sector. It is not a superstructure.
The size of an A&F urban civic project depends on the scale of the city. If the project is a symbolic place, the size of the project would be small, between 500-1000 sqm. If the project is intended to be a catalyst for the neighborhood, the area of study would be larger, between 15-20 ha.
The qualities of A&F urban civic projects are grounded, sustainable and responsive to topography; accessible by public and private transport with symbolic emphasizing particularities. We propose a geomorphological approach which focuses on scale, place and site more than on program and zoning.

FOSSAR DE LES MORERES Barcelona 1989

The aim of the work on the project was to convert the residual rectangular space adjacent to the basilica of Santa Maria del Mar into a symbolic space; a memorial to the events of 1714.
The most significant formal elements conditioning the proposal are the magnificent facade of the basilica and the Calle Malcuinat, a street perpendicular to the facade and situated on the opposite side of the square. The virtual axis of this street, which links Pla del Palau with the church of Santa Maria, becomes the basic datum of the project.
The work includes the polygonal limit of the existing paving of sandstone cobbles and slabs of Montjuïc stone as a trace of the recent history of the place. The work on the surface outlined by this perimeter defines the physical framework of the Memorial. The symbolic presence of the place is attained through the topographical manipulation of its surface.
The geometrical definition of this change in level, consolidated by the positioning of a low wall in red granite and the construction of the polygonal concavity in solid brick, links the slight depression of the pavement with the current perimeter now defined by the limestone and a cast grille.

Arriola & Fiol: Carme Fiol
Collaborator: Paulí Farrussola, Quantity surveyor
Client: Ajuntament de Barcelona
Surface: 989 m2
Budget: 180.310 €
Dates: 1988 – 1989

GRAN VIA DE LLEVANT Barcelona 2007

This is a project to improve the conditions of Gran Via the A-19 highway.
It proposes a new section: a projection of the local streets to form 3.5 meter projections overhanging the central highway. This solution reduces noise and atmospheric pollution.
Sound screens situated along the edge of the side projections protect the housing buildings along the Gran Via from the noise produced by intense high speed traffic at lower level.
The walkways bridging over the highway which are located at the end of all perpendicular streets arriving Garn Via reinforce relations between both sides.
Traffic is organized in three levels:
1. 6 central lanes that channel fast traffic
2. 4 lanes of local streets over flying-overs
3. 2 local lanes and a parking strip with different services (access to the central highway, car park entrances, delivery, bus stops), and 2 wide sidewalks along the housing façades plus bicycle lane
The topography of the new linear park solves the difference in level between housing and streets.
The new park space is organized with a series of pressed earth plazas at level and sloping lawns.

Arriola & Fiol: Carme Fiol, Andreu Arriola
E. Amat, X. Arriola, V. Bagnato, M. Cró, M. Fiore, C. Kólar, M. Lundström, S. Rux
Collaborators: J. Morla, (Quantity surveyor), BOMA, A. Obiols (Structure), Grup JG, J. Gallostra (Installations), H. Arau (Acoustic engineer)
Client: Generalitat de Catalunya – Ajuntament de Barcelona
Surface: 250.000 m2
Budget: 72.158.749 €
Dates: 2001-2007

LA ROSE DE CHERBOURG Paris, 2014

Since their construction in the 60s, the Circular Boulevard of La Défense and the elevated junction of La Rose de Cherbourg in Puteaux have seen, until today, La Défense evolve and develop around them.
Today it is the turn of the traffic junction to evolve to better adapt and to provide new and innovative urban design perspectives for the benefit of all citizens.
Under the renewal plan of La Défense, the traffic interface becomes a civic interface, a social condenser. The elevated highway and the ring traffic junction were acting as an obstacle, a barrier to communication between La Défense and the neighbourhood of Puteaux.
The first functional purpose of La Rose de Cherbourg is to become an element of communication that will restore a system of public space. Under this continuous green, there is also a mineral continuity: the square of La Rose in continuity with the place des Degrés and Charles de Gaulle Avenue.
The square is the meeting place and crossroads of soft mobility and pedestrians, as well as the largest urban space of the overall system. This is a square on two levels with a gazebo, a stage and a scenario.
The vegetation is the manifestation of its new role and change. The ring can be a garden, support for recreational or sports activities and a terrace or an outdoors scene.

Arriola & Fiol: Carme Fiol, Andreu Arriola
A. Arriola, E. Angelats, P.Angius, A. Curreli, A. Martinovic, A. Mellado, A. Monedero
Collaborators: F. Magos (lighting), Atelier Jours (horticulture and vegetation), Artelia (engineering VRD)
Client: EPADESA
Surface: 50.000 m2
Budget: 37.083.116 €
Dates: 2014 – 2020

PARC CENTRAL DE NOU BARRIS Barcelona 2007

Architectural skills applied to the urban space have produced a certain degree of uniqueness and newness to the landscape practice, fundamentally in the urban environment. These works might be labelled more than urban spaces as outdoor rooms.
Parc Central de Nou Barris, in the northern edge of Barcelona was designed with the above as a tentative approach. The site is the empty space left over by the massive construction of housing blocks during the 60’ and 70’ in a part of Barcelona which up to that moment was not more than crop fields.
Besides the size of the problem the dimension of the area could hardly be seen because of the arrangement of the housing urban design. The project attempts to suggest another landscape that not only will propose a new urban park in the core of the dense neighbourhood but also will integrate the skyline and the massing of the housing as an inseparable and essential part of the new landscape.

Arriola & Fiol: Carme Fiol, Andreu Arriola
E. Amat, X. Arriola, V. Bagnato, M. Boutin, A. Carreras, L. Dazio, D. Dethlefsen, M. Fiore, U. Huber, C. Kolar, I. Kuhn, B. Marugg, A. Soler, R. Nana, S. Rux
Collaborators: A. Obiol (structure), CEA (engineering), Ll. Roig, Ll. Fontanet (quantity surveyor)
Client: Pro Nou Barris S.A. – Ajuntament de Barcelona
Surface : 166.000 m2
Budget : 15.897.729 €
Dates : 1995 – 2007

WAGRAMER SRTASSE Wien 2014

Just few times you have the possibility of radically transforming an area of the city of Vienna and link the city with the landscape.
A landscape totally humanized and manipulated by men’s actions by centuries. This transformation is a great opportunity to restore the connection between the landscape and the city.
The parterres disposition harmonizes with the structure of the Viennese valley agricultural fields, strengthening the Wagramer urban axis as a new centre for social and commercial activities in Kagran.
The tree rows along the avenue define and limit the rest and walking areas, the play areas, bars and shops in their outdoor parts. They naturally integrate with the original Danube landscape.
In Czernetzplatz the existing topography is modified by 50 cm high terraces, that create quite playing areas and water mirrors that use the difference in height.
The urban furniture and the lighting system elements designed for the occasion will be sober, resistant, originals, integral and classical.
The urban activities and the social relationships grow when a continuity between buildings and open spaces exists. This continuity is also supported by the introduction of adequate species of plants that contribute to the green corridor continuity and support biodiversity into sustainable system.

Arriola & Fiol: Carme Fiol, Andreu Arriola
A. Arriola, A. Curreli, E. Angelats, S. Leccis, A. Mellado, A. Monedero
Collaborator: Clemens Kolar, EGKK
Client: Magistrat der Stadt Wien
Surface: 23.032 m2
Budget: 8.600.000 €
Dates: 2014 – 2020

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