Pere IV is located in the heart of 22@ that intends to transform Poble Nou into the new area of social, urban and technological innovation. However, due to its historical condition as the old industrial zone of Barcelona, more than 32% of its area – buildings, lots and urban space – is unoccupied. This situation not only reflects a sense of abandonment of the public space but transcends to the lack of activity over time. It presents a void in space, type and time.
In order to re-activate the public space, we propose the street as a SMART STREET HOTEL that offers programmatic flexibility, spatial temporality and social & technological inclusion. It is focused on the current users interested in the area – researchers, designers, entrepreneurs, artist – and the future needs of these users as citizens. As new citizens of the world we have lost the sense of ownership and have become more interested in collecting experiences. That is why – through a booking system – we offer the possibility they can rent and design a space to perform and kind of activity as long as needed.
As part of the booking system, users can observe augmented reality in their personal devices or tablets to interact with the urban space, find out about other users or friends, to know which spaces are available or where events are happening in real time as they walk along the street.
https://vimeo.com/56018823 To see augmented reality in the video download the aurasma app ( auras.ma/s/mwsC9) and subscribe to Pere IV. Every time that the search icon appears in the screen look at it through your tablet or mobile device.
The persistent change of activities, variety of users and increase of density will transform the public space constantly and more dramatically over the years. Social interaction as well as spatial and urban dynamics will transform and adapt to the future citizen and the city’s requirements. We agree on the idea of the smart city as a “flexible” city instead of a predetermined one and the SMART STREET HOTEL should become a mutable street which interactions develop its own limits.