Urban development of Plaça de l’Amistat, El Prat de Llobregat (Barcelona)

This project began with a process of public participation when residents expressed their personal images of the future square beside the court building, in oral, written or drawing form.

The resulting square has two different areas: a more representative area around the court building and a more domestic space, closely related to the residential buildings and neighbourhood activity. Between the two runs a “moat” or sunken stretch that separates them and a bridge that reunites them.

This explains the domestic, fragmented space of the square and the area around the public facility, a kind of plinth that somehow serves to isolate the court building from its domestic surroundings.

The result is the square as patchwork, with tattooed landscapes that accommodate local residents’ ideas and the profusion of small places (the bridge, the waterless river, the expanse of grass, the orderly square, the playgrounds, the lovers’ garden) that it brings together.

The central area of the square presents a smooth chromatic progression that establishes a gradual evolution from the urban environment to the court building. This neutral space provides a setting for four special places: a raised grass platform, two children’s playgrounds and the bridge, which joins the square with the spaces of the court building. Each is identified by a different colour (green, blue, red or yellow) and is lit at night by LED streetlights. These four places are conceived as flying carpets resting momentarily on the square’s surface to be used spontaneously by local residents before taking off again.