Barcelona at ground level (Barcelona a ras de suelo), new book by Danae Esparza, now available

City ground design , which is usually studied from a purely technical perspective and linked to the materials and their characteristics, is a key element in the construction of the image of the city, whether by repetition and extension -the case of panot in Barcelona-, or by individualization and intensity-as it happens with special  or artistic pavements.

This book deals with the impact of the pavement in the urban landscape, studying its evolution in Barcelona and provides relevant historiographic novelties, demonstrating that Barcelona was the first city in the world, outside the Portuguese area, that used the Portuguese calçada in its streets.

Finally, it deals with the problem of environmental sustainability and the role that technical innovations related to pavement design can assume. A proposal to discover Barcelona from a different point of view: at ground level.

Danae Esparza (Barcelona, 1982), PhD in Public Space and Urban Regeneration from the University of Barcelona, is memberof the research groups Polis Research Center, at the UB, and Elisava Research. She has published several articles on the impact of urban paving on the image of cities, especially Barcelona and Lisbon. She is currently a professor of the degree in Design at the Elisava school.

This book is the issue 17th of the collection “Comunicació Activa/ Ciutat” publishe by Edicions de la Universitat de Barcelona with the support of the Departament Arts and Conservation-Restauration, Universitat de Barcelona.This collection is directed by Dr. A. Remesar being members of the editorial board Horacio Capel, Montserrat Pareja-Eastaway, Jesús Pedro Lorente, Paola Valenti, Wioletta Kazimierska-Jerzyk, João Pedro Costa, Zuhra Sasa,  Verónica Crousse and Liliana Fracasso

ISBN 978-84-475-4006-8 In order to buy the book follow the link