Cal Metre’s path
Gironella 2015-2017
Recovery of Cal Metre’s path. Built work
- Architect: Carles Enrich Studio
- Collaborators: MASAad (structure), Carme Cervera (budget)
- Client: Consell Comarcal del Berguedà – Gironella Town Council
- Contractors: Serviobres Queralt
- Surface area: 1150 sqm
- Photographs: Carles Enrich
- Awards: Selected FAD Awards, First prize AJAC XI Awards, Selected Bienal Española de Arquitectura y Urbanismo XIV, Selected European Award for Architectural Heritage Intervention
With the installation of the lift to connect the different levels in two parts of Gironella, the Cal Metre road became a new everyday route for the town’s people and, as such, needed to be developed. The proposal was to restore the avenue as a place to walk and linger, recalling its use as an approach to the late nineteenth-century textile colonies. The project also set out to include the space of this old thoroughfare in the public space of the town as a new place to pause and view the riverside landscape, a potential venue for such varied events as trade fairs, shows and other possible activities associated with the industrial warehouses.
The project enhances the existing trees, mostly plane trees. It comprises a central strip of acid wash concrete and 60% of permeable surfaces right around the perimeter. At the edges, the intervention is softened by a greenway, with joints of 5 and 15 cm, providing transition and protection. Along the avenue, five patterned “carpets” are created, paved with reused cobblestones from the streets in the old town of Gironella, laid with open joints, which form the resting areas, in each case with an existing tree and two concrete benches. The existing fence was removed and replaced by a metal bar railing that allows views of the river.
