NUA ARQUITECTURES

Located in Campclar, a peripheral neighbourhood of Tarragona next to a big industrial park that has a large immigrant population, and guided by two clients, Cáritas Diocesana and the church of Campclar, the new Centre for Food Distribution is designed to dignify to the everyday life of a marginal neighbourhood supplying food to disadvantaged families.

Built next to the parish church to serve over two hundred families, the center was designed with three strong limitations: strong security requirements due to the social context of the neighbourhood, a lack of economic resources, (634€/m² with 120 unskilled volunteers completing the build on the final morning), and only three months for design and construction.

The project is an small intervention of 82,50m² and is organised into three spaces: a storage room, a service space, and a distribution zone. Users are given a number of points depending on their personal situation, and walk through a trail where they choose the food they need the most. The compact and hermetic nature of the building responds to climatic and security requirements, however, when the centre is in service, it opens to the users allowing natural light inside.

The building was conceived with a double discourse of industrial and artisanal aesthetics to participate in the neighbourhood's morphology. The decision was to use local construction techniques in order to integrate the design into the site and also to minimize transportation and construction costs.

The structural system, the roof and the lateral facades were built up with prefabricated metallic elements in order to shorten the construction time, and frontal facades and the interior walls were constructed by a fabric skin, which contextualises the new centre with its surroundings.

source: NUA arquitectures