La Fábrica del Sustento | Jaime Llull Fernández

The project is a Farming Research Center, based on hydroponic and Aquaponic, as new technics in Agriculture. Hydroponic is used for cultivate non mineral substrate plants and Aquaponic is the method by which the fish farm is introduced in agriculture, that this method makes generating a closed cycle in what plants nourish the fishes and upside down.

According to Masterplan, the project is located further south, near by Trinidad joint. in this site there is a building that, because of its cofiguration, can be guessed that it was a textile factory. Currently, it is the osmosis plant of Agbar. This factory is located in the center of area between Ave tracks and train tracks, finished in a cul-de-sac (no way out). Close to this place is found a dam that supplied energie to that factory. This group of elements make some strengh lines that generate the urbanization of the space which parcel the six hectares, two of these are aquatic spaces for the aquaponic system.

the urbanization uses as strategy the creation of a Cardo and a Decumanus, made from the old dam, that goes through the factory, so that the building is a filter for the control of the half of the farming territory. Cardo is the main line of the space and it’s accompained by smells, colours and texture during the route.

Aquaponic is stablished in the whole area, like a horizontal strategy, and the hydroponic, technology that solves the building, allows vertical crops.

The group of the buildings generated in the centre of the territory is organized by three buildings with architectural character to recover, and new building that is going to play with the same materialness that de regrowth of the main building, the factory. This building closes the space and generate to squares aswell: the main, to welcome people, and the secondary which recieves groups of visitors sporadically.

Each building has diferents purposes. The closest to Montcada is for the machinery, making easy the solution for any technical problem with the machines. The smallest building is for the management, and the factory is the research centre. Finally, the new building is used for the conferences.