Modular wooden seating, misters, and planters filled with species adapted to Barcelona’s Mediterranean climate are some of the design team’s interventions at Port Vell. Photos © Adrià Goula, click to enlarge.

A center of trade for over 2,000 years, Port Vell (“Old Port” in Catalan), along with the nearby 18th-century fishing village now called Barceloneta, has a long, rich history. Most recently, ahead of the 1992 summer Olympics, a new public promenade was installed, and beaches were restored. Scob’s design team was careful to honor the maritime hub, only subtly altering historically landmarked sections near La Rambla, and leaving basalt paving and pre-existing greenery untouched. “It’s important not to erase the history of the place,” says Scob cofounder Sergi Carulla Altadill, “and, instead, just update it, working with the identity of the location.”

Photo © Adrià Goula

The firm employed sustainable and cost-effective design strategies. For example, the team altered dark, heat-absorbing pavement by coating it with white resin paint (with a low thermal index) to delineate various zones. Along with a vapor irrigation system, the designers introduced a diversity of plant life to provide shading and improve air quality. To build the street furniture, they used locally sourced Iroko-wood slats that can be easily recycled.

Visitors enjoy views of the port from beneath the Columbus Monument, at one end of the newly reimagined public space. Photo © Adrià Goula

With their scheme for the vegetation, the team took a somewhat unorthodox approach. “We’re creating this particular language,” Carulla says. “We usually work with adapted local plants, but, in this case, we decided to propose a sort of Mediterranean garden of the world.” His team planted hardy native and non-native saline- and drought-resistant species to meet the city’s biodiversity goals and maintain a unified ecology. In addition to trees like French tamarisk, the designers included grasses, shrubs, and succulents, from New Zealand flax to red bottlebrush and Nerium oleander. Gradients of gold coin daisies, yellow sweet alyssum, purple grand statice, and orange ice plants paint the landscape with vibrant color that changes with blooming season.

With the Climate Islands, Scob offers much-needed sanctuary from the frenetic metropolis and also hopes to elicit a sense of fun. Carulla asks, “Why not reestablish the city as a playful space?”