Remodelling and Environmental Adaptation of Concrete Batching Plant in Madrid – Spain

• Awards: Madrids’ Chamber of Architects Association Award 2011
• Location: Madrid
• Built Surface Aerea: 1,520 m2
• Architects: Lorenzo Alonso González, José Luis Cerezo Sanz, Enrique García

The studio received the proposal to act in an old cement factory that was fully operative and which generated negative impacts on the surroundings (visual, noise, dust, etc.). The idea was to mitigate these impacts and optimize production, as well as environmental and landscape parameters, with the final aim of integrating the factory into the city.

We accepted the task as an urban and architectural challenge; the challenge of integrating a “cement factory” in a consolidated urban network.

To date, there does not yet exist a typology of this type of intervention, neither in Spain nor in Europe, as it has always been associated to an impressive holding, hardly compatible with urban areas.

From an architectural and urban point of view we believe that with adequate treatment, any industrial activity can be adapted to the city. This entails carrying out an extensive study of the problems that can arise and providing them with a solution, thus aiming for the sustainable exploitation and coexistence of industry and city.

The original plant used to collect the raw materials on the ground; now, a silo-based system has been designed.

This solution improves energetic efficiency by:

– Producing closer to the final consumer.

– Moving on to a more technologically advanced production performance, which increases the yield of the energy consumed.

-Controlling the emission of dust and noise, because the frame that envelops the cement factory acts as a filter.