The Radicant Machine: a thermodynamic architecture proposed for Barcelona’s historically industrial Sant Adrià de Besòs  neighborhood.

Designed to subvert the conventional practice of mitigating environmental variations with respect to time and orientation, the structure instead intentionally augments naturally occurring climatic disparities, thus generating extreme differentials in temperature, humidity and air pressure.

By harnessing the full force of the coastal mediterranean sun and wind as potential energy, flows are passively powered which condition and ventilate the interior via void atriums interconnecting the entire volume. This ecological technique allows for the creation of an entirely new building typology – not a vertical city, but rather a proper neighborhood of discrete programmatic ‘pods’ distributed in three-dimensional space according to their respective environmental needs and woven together by numerous potential routes, this fostering a truly urban complexity of uses.

Exhibition Model: South Facade

Exhibition Model: North Facade

Diagrams, Plans, Sections & Details

Axonometric of Interior Volumes (Pods)

Axonometric of Facade Systems

Section

Urban Plan

Exhibition Display

The Radicant Machine is a project of IaaC, Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia developed at the Master of Advanced Ecological Buildings in 2018/2019 by:
Students: Nour El Kamali, Pablo Corrotto Pradillo & Michael Salka