Participatory diagnosis. Can Sacrest factory in Olot

Proposal

In October 2020, the Urban Planning Department of the Olot City Council commissioned the Urban Planning Study of the block where the Sacrest Factory is located, the drafting architects Inés Rivera and Nuria Salvador. The commission consists of two parts: A) Analysis and Diagnosis, that is, a compilation of urban and field information including the different actors involved at the level of the city fabric, and B) Proposals, a second part of proposals and urban possibilities of the ambit.

Within section A) Analysis and Diagnosis, the order includes a “compilation of expectations” of all the different agents that converge on the island in order to identify and anticipate the fit, in a participatory manner, of the planned transformation. Commissioned by the drafting architects of the Urban Planning Study, the collection of expectations is designed and prepared by Marta Serra (Polytechnic University of Catalonia) and Anaïs Bas (Cíclica Arquitectura sccl).

Objectives

The objective of the commission is to prepare a participatory diagnosis of the agents proposed by the Olot City Council to gather the expectations of the different agents involved at the level of the city’s fabric: neighbourhood associations, owners and individuals, School of Art, Municipal Library and various departments of the council itself.

Approach

To ensure the effectiveness and impact of the participatory diagnosis foreseen in the design and development of proposals by the writing team, a series of periodic meetings is established together with the latter to transfer the information collected at the time, thus being able to influence , in the proposals to present the Urban Planning Study commissioned.

Results

The material and documentation generated are the minutes of the participated interviews, summary diagnostic tables for each of the agents and for the different topics discussed. These documents allow a cross-sectional reading of what are the divergences or affinities of gaze on the same topic or program. A Compilation of Expectations Report is generated, which starts from explaining how this participatory diagnosis has been planned to be carried out and concludes with a series of general conclusions derived from the comparative review between summary tables by agents and summary tables by subject.