The Carles Enrich studio is the author of the winning project. The goal of the competition was to offer a comprehensive project for remodelling this future facility. Now the winning team will develop the draft project for the building on the property and the garden, with the possibility of designing the final project.

The property is located at C/ Xiprer, 40-46, in the Guinardó neighbourhood, in the most northern part of the block delimited by the streets of C/ Xiprer, Ptge. Garcini and C/ Escornalbou. The whole property, including the built sections and the outdoor areas, is municipally owned. Its irregular hexagonal area covers an area of 1,569 square metres.

The Councillor for Horta-Guinardó, Rosa Alarcón, affirmed: “Thanks to demands from local people, Barcelona City Council has taken another step to preserve heritage and give it a social use for elderly people in the Guinardó neighbourhood”.

The competition jury was made up of urban design experts and municipal representatives. The jury members made a positive assessment of the winning project as it highlights the Can Garcini country house and is very respectful and sensitive towards the main values and heritage elements of the property. The jury also noted the reuse of materials and the language of austerity and simplicity adopted. A positive view was taken of the general strategy of the project, giving value to the façade and the distinguishing character of the party wall so as to integrate access points and interact with the old threshing area and the outer latticework. The spatial organisation of the garden adopts clear criteria and a detailed and coherent definition of the vegetation.

The resolution of the competition and the presentation to neighbourhood people and organisations represent a step towards the completion of the final project for this new facility during the current term of office.

History of Can Garcini

The Can Garcini property (also known as Casa Garcini, Torre Garcini or Torre de la Concepció) was built in the 18^th century and consists of an isolated rectangular country house with a ground floor, two upper floors with a tower, a well and the remains of other buildings, surrounded by a garden and currently delimited by a fence which gives onto Ptge. Garcini and C/ Xiprer.

The current building, inhabited until the end of 2010, is the result of various renovations and extensions from over the centuries, the last one carried out in the 1980s to divide the building into three homes. The property was later sold and the company which owned it requested permission to demolish it, the licence being delayed on various occasions before finally being cancelled on 31 December 2015.

As a result of demands from local people to regain the property for the neighbourhood, the City Council promoted an amendment to the General Plan for the area around Can Garcini, providing for its expropriation. This gained final approval on 14 April 2016. On 2 March 2019, Barcelona City Council’s Government Commission agreed to start an expropriation process for the property, which finally became an asset for the public domain.