In Barcelona, a Temporary Pavilion Highlights Passive Design and Recyclability
In October, Barcelona was the site of the 37th Louis Vuitton America’s Cup sailing yacht race. Established in 1851, the event is the oldest continuous competition in any international sport and spotlights exemplary crewmanship and the latest advances in nautical engineering. The competition also offers host cities an opportunity to flaunt its cultural assets, while local corporations have a chance to build viewing pavilions for tourists and residents alike. One such structure for Barcelona, by the Institute of Advanced Architecture of Catalonia (IAAC), was designed to be disassembled and reused for future events.
The pavilion was located on Moll de la Fusta, an esplanade adjacent to Port Vell within the larger Port of Barcelona. Photo © Adrià Goula
Commissioned by Acciona Energía, a Madrid-based utility and industry leader in renewable energy, the temporary pavilion was located within Moll de la Fusta, an esplanade at Port Vell, a marina and park built for the 1992 Summer Olympics sailings events. The port and its grounds were renovated by the city government, from 2022 through 2024, in anticipation of the America’s Cup. The overhaul included repairs and improvements to nearby promenades, like Moll de Pescadors; the renovation of the Tinglados del Moll Oriental, a series of old port warehouses that served as a hospitality area during the competition; and the construction of an additional marina, with approximately 43,000 square feet of new public space atop it.
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The pavilion was largely open to the elements and relied on ocean breezes for passive cooling. The first floor was open to the public (1) and the second floor to invited guests (2). Photo © Adrià Goula
Anemometer-inspired wooden poles topped the pavilion. Photo © Adrià Goula
“Typical pavilions feature fairly generic construction that is reliant on steel and plastic, with large air conditioning equipment that emit noise pollution and heat their surroundings,” explains IAAC director Daniel Ibañez. This brief for this project, however, called for the pavilion to represent the goals of Acciona Energía through the use of bio-based materials and passive design principles.
The two-story pavilion, assembled in just 12 days, comprised two levels. The first was open to the public, and the second was reserved for invited guests and corporate meetings. Its floor plates were made of cross-laminated timber, with a grid of a glulam post-and-beams supporting the pavilions vertical loads. Approximately 50 percent of the timber components were recycled.
The exterior was partially enclosed with four halved wind turbine blades salvaged from Acciona’s El Cabrito wind farm near the Strait of Gibraltar and recycled high-tenacity polyester fabric. Photovoltaic panels atop the roof had an energy capacity of 12kWp, which proved more than sufficient for the pavilion’s operations during the nearly two-month event. By keeping the pavilion's first floor open to the elements and incorporating numerous slits in the enclosure above, the design team harnessed prevailing sea breezes to cool spectators and visitors. Those gusts made all the more evident by a crop of anemometer-inspired wooden poles topped with LED lights that rose above the roofline and rippled in the wind.
Altogether, the design team estimates that less than 25 tons of CO2 were emitted to build the ephemeral structure, some 50 times less than a comparably scaled pavilion using traditional materials. At the conclusion of the America's Cup, the structure was disassembled in just a week; the IAAC has already received a commission from Acciona Energía to reassemble it in the Extremadura region of southwestern Spain. There, it will serve as a welcome and educational center for a biomass plant, which is currently under construction.
The pavilion, though ephemeral, will be reassembled for the same client. Photo ©Adrià Goula
“It’s a good attempt and a necessary exercise in what to do with available material that has architectural potential, and is often overlooked,” concludes Ibañez. Considering the scale—and local impact—of international sporting events and festivals, greater adoption of such methods could be a game changer.
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