NEW WAVE: Sustainable Architecture Reimagining Barcelona’s Eixample Hyperblock

NEW WAVE is a conceptual urban proposal that reinterprets Ildefons Cerdà’s celebrated Eixample plan for the environmental and social demands of a contemporary city. Developed by Dmitry Batanov, Ария Белокрылова, Андрей Мачуш, and Алиса Смирнова, the project was recognized as a Shortlisted entry of Hyperblock.

Rather than rejecting Barcelona’s historic urban structure, NEW WAVE begins by asking how it might evolve. The proposal preserves the recognizable order and atmosphere of the Eixample while introducing a new system of pedestrian circulation, green infrastructure, mixed-use programming, and adaptable public spaces.

At its core, the project explores sustainable architecture at the scale of the neighborhood. Buildings, streets, courtyards, parks, commercial spaces, housing, and mobility infrastructure are treated as parts of one interconnected urban ecosystem.

Reinterpreting the Legacy of the Eixample

Cerdà’s nineteenth-century plan for Barcelona established one of the world’s most identifiable urban grids. Repeated perimeter blocks, chamfered corners, broad streets, and interior courtyards created a rational framework capable of accommodating rapid urban expansion.

NEW WAVE recognizes the strength of this inherited system while focusing on how the district has changed over time.

The project diagrams trace the gradual occupation of the Eixample block. Courtyards originally envisioned as open spaces became increasingly enclosed as buildings expanded inward. Ground levels were occupied by garages, warehouses, parking, and service functions. Meanwhile, streets became heavily influenced by vehicular circulation.

The result is a condition familiar to many dense cities: public space exists, but substantial portions of the neighborhood are dedicated to traffic and infrastructure rather than pedestrians, greenery, and communal life.

NEW WAVE responds by retaining the fundamental logic of the grid while reorganizing what happens inside it.

From Traditional Blocks to Green Hyperblocks

The proposal transforms groups of conventional urban blocks into larger hyperblocks organized around shared green centers.

Instead of allowing every street to function primarily as vehicular infrastructure, the project establishes a hierarchy of circulation. Main roads continue to accommodate necessary urban traffic, while secondary areas become increasingly pedestrian oriented.

Each hyperblock contains an internal landscaped zone that can support different community functions. Depending on local requirements, these spaces could become parks, schools, cultural facilities, museums, sports areas, markets, or other civic programs.

This variability is an important element of the scheme. NEW WAVE is not conceived as a single repetitive object reproduced endlessly across Barcelona. Its underlying system remains consistent while allowing individual districts to develop distinct identities.

The result is a form of sustainable architecture based on adaptability rather than uniformity.

Separating Pedestrians and Vehicles

One of the project's most significant interventions is the introduction of two principal urban levels.

Vehicle circulation remains predominantly at ground level, while an elevated platform creates an additional pedestrian realm. By separating these systems, the proposal attempts to reduce everyday conflict between cars, bicycles, and pedestrians.

Parking is moved underground, freeing valuable surface area that would otherwise be occupied by stationary vehicles.

This strategy creates opportunities for landscaped courtyards, recreational areas, wider pedestrian routes, and community spaces while maintaining access for transportation and servicing.

The platform is therefore more than an architectural device. It becomes a continuous public layer connecting different buildings and programs across the hyperblock.

A Continuous Green Path Through Barcelona

The drawings reveal another important component of NEW WAVE: a continuous green path connecting individual hyperblocks.

Parks, courtyards, pedestrian alleys, roof landscapes, and community spaces are linked into a larger recreational network. Residents could move through substantial portions of the Eixample without continuously interacting with vehicular traffic.

Small commercial programs such as kiosks, cafés, shops, and neighborhood services can occupy parts of this route, transforming circulation into a social experience.

Rather than treating landscape as isolated pockets between buildings, NEW WAVE proposes greenery as connective infrastructure.

This approach expands the environmental role of sustainable architecture. Landscape becomes part of mobility, recreation, public health, neighborhood identity, and everyday social interaction.

Wave-Shaped Roofs Create a New Urban Identity

The name NEW WAVE is expressed most clearly through the project's roofscape.

Buildings retain relatively rational footprints but develop folded and sloping upper surfaces that create a recognizable wave-like profile. These roofs introduce variation into the otherwise repetitive geometry of the Eixample.

The designers describe the roofs as a way of guiding sunlight toward the centers of the hyperblocks. At the same time, many roof surfaces become extensions of the project's green infrastructure.

The resulting architecture remains connected to Barcelona's ordered grid at ground level while creating a more expressive silhouette above it.

Seen from the street, individual structures maintain the scale of urban blocks. Viewed from above, however, the roofs combine into a broader geometric landscape.

This contrast gives NEW WAVE its visual identity without abandoning the organizational clarity of Cerdà's plan.

Designing the Hyperblock as a Mixed-Use Community

NEW WAVE distributes programs vertically to create a more complex urban environment.

Underground areas accommodate parking and technical infrastructure. Lower levels contain everyday services such as shops, cafés, groceries, and medical facilities. Residential programs, including duplex apartments and co-living spaces, occupy upper levels.

Community-oriented functions such as schools, museums, kindergartens, sports facilities, and public landscapes are concentrated around hyperblock centers.

This mixture reduces the dependence on distant destinations by bringing essential activities closer to residential areas.

Rather than separating housing, commerce, recreation, mobility, and landscape into isolated zones, the project combines them within a walkable neighborhood structure.

The result reflects a fundamental principle of sustainable urban planning: environmental performance is closely connected to how people move through and use the city.

Greening the Existing Urban Fabric

Vegetation plays a major role throughout NEW WAVE.

Green roofs extend landscape onto buildings. Courtyards are reclaimed from parking and service infrastructure. Selected blocks are removed or opened to create larger parks. Trees line pedestrian streets and major circulation corridors.

Each hyperblock receives a green center, while the broader network connects these spaces into a district-scale ecological system.

The project therefore approaches sustainability as something embedded within the urban fabric rather than added to individual buildings as an isolated feature.

The drawings suggest a future Eixample where architecture and landscape increasingly overlap, creating more shaded, planted, and pedestrian-oriented environments.

Improving Ventilation, Noise Conditions, and Urban Comfort

The project's open block configurations also respond to environmental conditions.

Instead of continuous enclosed masses, gaps between structures allow air to move more freely through the neighborhood. The elevated pedestrian platform provides greater separation between people and ground-level traffic, potentially reducing direct exposure to vehicle noise and exhaust.

Green spaces and planted corridors further contribute to the project's ambition to create a more comfortable urban environment.

These strategies illustrate how sustainable architecture can operate beyond energy-efficient buildings. Urban morphology itself can influence ventilation, mobility, access to greenery, social interaction, and environmental quality.

An Urban System Designed to Adapt

A major strength of NEW WAVE is its emphasis on a repeatable system rather than a fixed architectural object.

The designers propose a sequence for reorganizing the Eixample.

Major existing roads are retained. A new grid subdivides larger areas into manageable districts. Secondary circulation routes are introduced. Green spaces replace selected blocks. Hyperblocks and community centers are then distributed throughout the resulting network.

Because the centers can take different shapes and functions, the system can adapt according to the needs of individual neighborhoods.

One hyperblock might prioritize education. Another could become a cultural district. A third could focus on sport, recreation, markets, or public gardens.

This flexibility allows the framework to evolve alongside changing demographic and social conditions.

Barcelona 2050: Architecture as a Collaborative Discipline

The project's accompanying statements extend the concept beyond physical design.

The team imagines Barcelona in 2050 as a greener city characterized by more open spaces and environmentally responsible architecture. They also anticipate architecture becoming increasingly interdisciplinary.

Environmental scientists, social researchers, designers, engineers, planners, and other specialists may play larger roles within future architectural teams as urban challenges become more complex.

NEW WAVE therefore positions future architecture not simply as the production of buildings, but as the coordination of interconnected environmental and social systems.

This perspective aligns closely with the project's physical strategy. Housing cannot be separated from mobility. Mobility cannot be separated from public space. Public space cannot be separated from ecology.

The city works as a network.

Juror Joaquín Alvado Bañón on the Meaning of “New Wave”

The conceptual title also attracted the attention of juror Joaquín Alvado Bañón, Associated Professor and Architectural Designer at Joaquín Alvado & Associates in Spain.

He commented:

“To mention the musical New Wave as a counterpart of post-punk, where the artists were influenced by bourgeois pressure from the musical pop of 1960s. Could we use the reference as a projective approach talking about social future behaviors?”

The observation introduces another reading of the project.

“New Wave” can be understood not only as a description of the buildings' flowing roof forms but also as a cultural metaphor. The historic New Wave movement developed through experimentation and resistance to established conventions. Within an architectural context, that reference raises questions about how future lifestyles might challenge inherited models of housing, mobility, public space, and social organization.

The juror's question therefore shifts attention from formal design toward behavior. If cities change because society changes, sustainable architecture must address not only environmental performance but also new patterns of living, working, moving, and gathering.

Preserving Barcelona While Allowing It to Change

Perhaps the most important aspect of NEW WAVE is that it does not attempt to erase Barcelona's historic identity.

The Eixample grid remains legible. Its order continues to organize streets, neighborhoods, and buildings. What changes is the relationship between the elements inside that structure.

Cars lose some of their dominance. Courtyards become active landscapes. Parking moves underground. Pedestrian areas expand. Green roofs introduce new recreational spaces. Community programs occupy hyperblock centers. Landscape connections stretch across the district.

Through these changes, the project proposes an evolutionary model for sustainable architecture in Barcelona.

The city does not need to abandon its past to address its future.

Instead, existing urban systems can be reinterpreted through contemporary environmental and social priorities.

NEW WAVE as a Framework for Future Urbanism

NEW WAVE ultimately presents Barcelona's Eixample as an adaptable framework rather than a finished historical artifact.

Its architecture operates across multiple scales, from individual apartments and shops to buildings, courtyards, hyperblocks, green corridors, and the metropolitan grid.

This layered approach allows the proposal to address several challenges simultaneously: pedestrian safety, traffic, parking, public space, greenery, ventilation, recreation, community facilities, housing, and urban identity.

The project's wave-like architecture provides the visual character, but its deeper contribution lies in the network connecting these elements.

Through green hyperblocks, elevated pedestrian spaces, mixed-use programs, adaptable community centers, and interconnected landscapes, NEW WAVE demonstrates how sustainable architecture could transform an established urban district without sacrificing the qualities that make it recognizable.

It imagines Barcelona not as a city requiring complete reinvention, but as one capable of continuous adaptation.

And in that sense, NEW WAVE is precisely what its name suggests: a new layer of urban thinking moving through an existing city.