Urbanistic Intervention / forest landscaping known as the Friends of the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC Boscdel Friends), in a more general context of other works including landscaping in the left margin of the meander of the river Llobregat and within the coastal area defined for this purpose by the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona, Cornella municipality. This project is being developed by the Association of Friends of the UPC through its Friends of the UPC Foundation, in collaboration with institutions in the metropolitan area of Barcelona, Association of Municipalities (AMBMM). The action will enable civil society, represented by the Association of Friends of the UPC, to be present in a public space with a personal and concrete project.
The Association of Friends of the Technical University of Catalonia (AAUPC) is a non-profit organization initiated in 1991, driven by the Social Council of the university. It currently has 3920 members, including graduates, businesses and institutions. AAUPC's mission is to be a bridge between the university and society by strengthening and increasing the two-way nature of these links. The following are priority objectives of the Association: • Promote job placement of graduates of the UPC, based on the concept of career development. • Encourage university-industry connections, seeking more direct involvement of companies in the process of professionalization of graduates and disseminating the services produced by the UPC (research and development, training, consulting, specialized bibliographical documentation, etc.). To offer the UPC community a space for reflection and opinion formation in its own areas of: industrial policy, sustainability and environment, globalization, good governance, etc.).
Compensate for CO2 emissions generated by AAUPC activities through the creation of the forest in a degraded area.
Promote the commitment of civil society organisations to mitigate climate change, creating a new green space accessible to the entire citizenry.
Structure a pedestrian pathway system that connects the zones of Cornella and Sant Boi de Llobregat with each other, along with the surrounding areas.
To recover, on a human scale. To rediscover the naturalist paradigms which were made artificial and left without resolving the issues of its historical continuity.
The great meander of the Llobregat river is located between the municipalities of Sant Boi, Sant Joan Despí, and Cornella. It concerns a geographical uniqueness of the alluvial flat which has been severely disrupted by the impact of the communication and transport infrastructures. In the interior of this complex suburban surface, 80 hectares—surrounded by a population of 200.000—have been demarcated. This area includes and is bounded by the meander of the river on the left, and it will support access to the major infrastructure in the south-eastern region of Barcelona. In its interior, and always at the rivers margin, an interstitial space has been selected, formed by a clover intersection of A-2 freeway, highway C-245, and steps from railroads and trains, in order to better situate the forest project. AAUPC Forest area of intervention, Phase 1: 6.749,66 m2 AAUPC Forest area of intervention, Phase 1 & Phase II: 23.936 m2 The territory is fragmented by the major regional infrastructures of metropolitan Barcelona and is inaccessible to the general public. Concern over climate change has meant that civil society promoted measures of responsibility in response to these occurrences and to the difficulties of reaching an agreement at the global conference of the United Nations (UN) in Copenhagen. The Association of Friends of the Technical University of Catalonia (AAUPC) is actively involved in this project, carrying an attitude that is favorable to territorial environmental recuperation, agreeing to perform a symbolic action to express its position and to help combat CO2 emissions into the atmosphere. AAUUP Forest is defined as a Mediterranean landscape profile composed of 400 trees, stone pines, cork oak, cypress, tamarisk and, sporadically, poplars, structuring the latter into interior spaces we call 'Temple'. Representative type objects along the forest polyhedral are known under the name 'Platonic Solids', on the occasion of its sponsor, Plato. It involves five figures, the faces of which are identical and equilateral and can be confined to one sphere: Tetrahedron: Fire, Cube or Hexahedron: earth; Octahedron: Air, Icosahedrons: Water; dodecahedron: the Universe. They refer to the four factors giving rise to all things and the universe, the fifth element is the ether, the 'quintessential Aristotelian'. They incorporate into the space in the course of the execution of the two phases of the Forest AAUPC. They symbolise the sciences, art, and wisdom.
The signing of an agreement with the Metropolitan Area of Barcelona, which implemented an environmental and landscape restoration program along the banks of the Llobregat, has facilitated the materialisation of this project. The Metropolitan Area is the entity that will run the plantation, ensure accessibility to the forest, and be responsible for its upkeep.
It is an institution of civil society taking action not only to create landscapes, but also for the use and enjoyment of the citizenry. This, in turn, implies an act of awareness around sustainability and climate change, and reflects a committed attitude towards the environment.
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