Turó de la Peira / Can Peguera (Barcelona), Making public space for all

Abstract

This article, commissioned in the Master’s Degree in Urban Design of the University of Barcelona, presents a research baseline developed in the crisis period of COVID19, using the Google Earth tool, which aims to give a quick reading of two of the thirteen neighbourhoods that make up the Nou Barris district of Barcelona: Can Peguera and Turó de la Peira.

Both neighborhoods have been a welcome point for an important part of the city of Barcelona’s immigration. On the one hand, the Can Peguera neighborhood has its origins in the relocation project in 1929 with which it was intended to relocate the workers who lived in shantytowns in Montjuc, into groups of housing popularly known as cheap houses.

As a result of the period of development during Franco’s rule, the territory of Turó de la Peira was urbanized in 1955 supported by a Partial Plan under the 1953 Regional Plan; which led to uncontrolled urban speculation and the use of low-quality materials which was evident by the collapse, in the 1980s, by alkali-aggregate reaction (AAR) of the first housing building on Calle Cadí in Turó de la Peira.Under this context, research criteria have been established based on territorial historical evolution, basic socioeconomic characteristics, applied urban planning, analysis of connectivity systems and analysis of the morphology of it by analyzing the public space by eagle eye using Google Earth as you couldn’t travel through the territory..