An Urban Strategy for Adaptive Reuse: Learning from Industrial Heritage in Barcelona

Cities evolve through time, adapting to new needs, uses and dynamics. This study examines a specific transformation, industrial uses, in a particular location, Barcelona. The objective is to develop a methodology that allows to analyze the transformation of the built environment in cities not only as singular elements but as an interconnected system. Through historic and current cartographies, a categorical comparative analysis is performed and the energy needed for transformation of industrial buildings is calculated. The study showed how, if when industrial uses were pushed out from their original location, the transformation of the industrial heritage into other uses had been planned as an overall strategy, the city would have benefited in several ways, including access to open space, preservation of cultural heritage or energy consumption reduction. This methodology can be used beyond this immediate case study, and work as a baseline to understand transformation processes in urban centers and plan for the unavoidable change that every city experiences.