Pathways to reach the net zero energy building: The waste treatment centre in Mercabarna. Barcelona. Case study

Mercabarna is Barcelona’s central market, supplies fresh food to the metropolitan area and generates economic activity in all Catalonia, and other European markets. The seventy percent of solid waste generated in Mercabarna is nowadays recycled in the treatment centre called “Punt verd,” that consumes lots of water and energy and causes at the same time trouble and foul smell in its surroundings. Our project works by designing a new roof to cover the existing installation, which would try to reduce the environmental impact caused by its activity, while improving its surrounding conditions: generate shadow that decrease the external temperature, improve the air quality by greenering with aromatic plants, use and accumulate the rainwater which would be used in irrigation and cleaning, could be capable to produce enough electricity from the solar radiation that would balance the actual purchase of grid energy. This paper moreover will report how this new skin would turn the existing industrial factory into a hybrid building that will have the capacity to supply, in total, the annual operating energy requirements of their industrial process, and would as well, reach the net zero energy building goal.