Portfolio

Enrique Valiente Stegeman. Portfolio

This portfolio represents the key projects I have worked on for the last 5/6 years (studios above). My involvement in these projects included full responsibility from design to site management, budgeting, contractor negotiations and collaboration with engineering firms.

This means most of the information (except renderings) has been carried out by myself, with collaborators or I have been in charge of it.

Gran Via’s site management Gran Via is one of the 3 main avenues in the city of Barcelona and the longest in Spain. This edge follows to the airport, 30 minutes away by car, crossing cities in the Metropolitan Area, one of them, Hospitalet de Llobregat (one of the highest population cities in Spain as it’s become an extension of Barcelona).

Because of the natural growth of Hospitalet and the cutting edge Gran Via supposed to it, connections within the city had to be restablished by covering (partially) Gran Via, restoring areas for pedestrians and building connecting platforms over the road to gain urban and green spaces. This has been the largest scale project I have ever participated in and, as an internship first and architect later on, my role was to give constant support (I had to be relocated at the construction site) to the re-designing process of construction and avoid any delay might occur. Usual tasks were drawing and solving design conflicts when it comes to build immediately, and helping the landscape architect in charge with her usual tasks (mails, documents, sketches, replace in meetings…). Although I wasn’t dealing with top responsabilities I’m glad I stayed there for 2 years, since I learnt a lot by staying at the site and could later say I was conscious of the construction processes and their relation with drawings.

Llobregat river’s environmental restoration This river is the largest source of drinking water to the city of Barcelona and reaches the Mediterranean sea near Barcelona’s airport. Along times it has been used as a dumping site for people in the area, and has now been restored both for flora and fauna recovering and to stimulate its use as a pedestrians’ and sports area, where people can enjoy open space in combination with nature.

My role in this project has consisted of being in charge of the correct development of the whole project and site management for the period of 3 years, as it’s been developed in different stages and phases with different contractors. Usual duties varied from drawing up and building up documents to meetings, negotiations, budget’s control, etc…in collaboration with an agricultural engineer in charge of plantations and an engineering consultancy in charge of calculations and irrigation systems design (non-urban methods).

I’m proud this project was honoured as finalist for the the FAD awards in the category of public space.

New RCDEspanyol stadium’s surrounding RCD Espanyol, a “La Liga” football club relocated its team from the Barcelona Olympic Stadium to Cornella, on the outskirts of Barcelona. This new soccer stadium and mall beside it are built in a shared plot which needed to provide access to both buildings and generate a public park to be used by people in the area. I was in charge of the public space project for the period of 3 years, from building up documents to site management. With some similarities with the functions I had in Llobregat river’s project, the structure of work was severely more complex (and sometimes complicated) as there were many agents and clients involved in the construction of the whole area (for which we had more meetings than site visits). Because of the construction crisis in Spain and our position in the construction process, project was runned with a very low budget from the beginning, so a tremendous effort was constantly done by redesigning and negotiating in order to achieve this challenge without loosing quality in the final result of space.

Mall attached to soccer stadium, only separated by an open corridor which provides acces to both buildings

Salt’s path-way in Cardona, to salt mines Cardona, 90kms north of Barcelona, is a town known both for the most important medieval castle in Catalonia (dated 886 AD) and its salt mines, exploited since the Romans. The town attracts a significant volume of tourists every year. As a result of a competition won, Batlle i Roig architects was assigned to carry out the project of a connection from the town of Cardona to the salt mines. These salt mines had been worked for decades in the past and are now mainly used as a tourist attraction, so access to them from town had to be improved. My tasks in the project consisted of drawing up panels for the competition, and then on developing a basic and construction document, to finally be able to manage the site. This, though, has been a small-scale project with much interest from the local council to represent a new image of the town and its opening to tourism, so we really enjoyed the process of designing and management as we experienced certain freedom when working.

Open space restoration in Sta. Maria d’Oló AB paisatgistes, a landscape practice in Barcelona, got an assignment from Sta. Maria d’Oló’s Council, and project had to be drafted and drawed up within 3 weeks. Albert Bestard gave me the chance to demonstrate my skills by carrying out a great part of the project. I assumed this challenge with very short time to settle down, and finally we achieved to deliver it on time.

This project consists of a medium-scale plot of land which has had to be re-arranged to let the town’s cityzens enjoy a local park. Small budget was a condition, but wasn’t an obstacle to arrange the whole area as Albert and I already had experience in this kind of projects. Most of the budged was finally applied to unavoidable tasks such as compensated eartmovings or fixing defective superficial waters, but managed to establish a nice and enjoyable green area where all neighbours could join and share their open air activities. Recovering the green and making it functional has been one of our aims to develop this project, which is now under construction.

Fast bus lanes from Cornellà to Castelldefels This project has been developed as a result of a successful competition where practices were invited to lenghten Barcelona’s electric tram along towns on the outskirts of the city. It is a very large scale project (13 km. long crossing 5 towns), in which our winner proposal consited of mixing the idea of restricted fast bus lanes (as long as possible and depending on the possibilities of every place crossing) with car and bicycle lanes.

This idea, adapted to every location and with common criteria to establish a unique image, not only solved several isolated problems, but also was considered the least expensive proposal, which would offer better quality at every finish (bus instead of electric tram incredibly reduces the investment, which can be applied on materials, finishes, etc...). This project combines the idea of implementing a need and give much quality to the adjacent spaces. Developing the project was tough but challenging, as the public agency and related organisations in charge of supervising the project established very strong rules when it comes to the executive project, agreeing with their own drawing-manual to accept any volumes.

The project was divided in 5 volumes (1 for each town), and my role was to be responsible of the executive project in the suburb of Castelldefels. All volumes, after several reviews along the last 3 months, were finally delivered and accepted after 2 years of work.

Public space covering in Beirut, Lebanon At the heart of Lebanon’s capital, Beirut Central District (BCD) is an area thousands of years old, traditionally a focus of business, finance, culture and leisure. Its reconstruction constitutes one of the most ambitious contemporary urban developments. Acclaimed as one of the most important commercial centres in the region, Beirut Souks is an attractive regional and global business, shopping and leisure destination.

Solidere, a Lebanese company for the development and reconstruction of Beirut Central District, asked Batlle i Roig to make a proposal to cover the central public scapes of the Souks in Beirut. Our proposal was a reference to clocks in the city of Beirut and the relationship among them. This clock, at the entrance of the Souks, would also be one of the pilars to hold a textile canopy, as a reference to carpets and the way light comes into open corridor in arabic souks and galleries.

My duty was to build up the whole file, with its drawings, samples and models to finally meet the client at our office and explain our proposal.

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Urbanization of a plot in St. Boi As a result of a competition won, Batlle i Roig was assigned to make a project to urbanize the surroundings of 2 new buildings. This plot would be recovered from a free and non-paved parking area in order to build city. A central canopy, unleveled benches, games’ areas and other functional areas were established to gain space to void, so people in the new buildings and from all over the neighbourhood would be able to come and meet at a small central park in the area.

My role in this project, in a collaboration agreement, was to help with the competition panels and to design construction drawings (such as the canopy) to be able to built it up. This project is currently under construction.