Cities concentrate a large part of the population, which often results in a high environmental impact. They are major sources of pollution and contribute significantly to climate change, intensifying heat waves with direct effects on people’s health. Ombra Viva is therefore a proposal to address this situation.
Faced with this reality, the Agència Local d’Energia (ALE) of the Barcelona City Council and the Fundació Bit Habitat decided to confront it with a call to the city’s innovation ecosystem. The challenge presented was to create an urban infrastructure that could provide seasonal shade adjustable according to the time of year and, at the same time, generate renewable energy through solar panels. This is how the Ombra Viva project was born—an innovative initiative aimed at contributing to the creation of more sustainable and comfortable cities.
In collaboration with the Institut d’Arquitectura Avançada de Catalunya and the Equal Saree architecture studio, a modular infrastructure was designed that not only meets the challenge proposed by the Agència Local d’Energia and Bit Habitat, but also goes a step further. In addition to providing seasonal shade and generating renewable energy through photovoltaic modules, the innovative proposal integrates an air filtration system using photocatalytic fabrics. This material, when in contact with sunlight, not only creates shade and helps improve people’s thermal comfort, but also contributes to cleaning polluted air through a chemical reaction that decomposes inorganic and organic pollutants present in the environment.
After studying several designs and locations, and considering the budget and shade surface of the different faculties of the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC), it was decided to build a total of three modular infrastructures at the Faculty of Mathematics and Statistics of the UPC.
Each module was designed so that, with the exception of the foundations, it is completely dismantlable yet resistant. Wood was used as the structural material, with a maximum height of three metres.
The infrastructure provides shade thanks to a metal sheet on which the photovoltaic panels are installed. This metal structure is placed on an axis that allows its rotation and, therefore, the modification of shade according to the thermal needs of each season. This perfectly meets the seasonal shading objective required by Bit Habitat and ALE.
Each infrastructure includes 4 photovoltaic modules. To introduce aesthetic innovation, they were designed in red, as this colour was considered to facilitate landscape integration within the urban environment. Although this is an uncommon pigment in the photovoltaic sector, it is not difficult to obtain from solar panel suppliers.
Each photovoltaic module has a capacity of 370 W, resulting in a total installed power of 4.44 kW across the three modular infrastructures. Regarding the inverters, each of the three infrastructures will have 3 microinverters with a nominal power of 380 W.
Furthermore, to fulfil the educational objective set by Bit Habitat and ALE, a monitoring system will be installed to evaluate air quality. The results will be displayed using a traffic light system (green, orange, and red), enabling a visual understanding of air quality conditions.
Ombra Viva, therefore, fully meets expectations. It becomes a climate refuge, a renewable energy production and air filtration hub, and a powerful educational and pedagogical tool capable of showing university students a paradigmatic example of an engineering project that embraces sustainability, innovation, and people’s well-being.
