Living Lab AIMPLAS

How to create an exhibition garden in an urban context dedicated to economic activities?

This question guided cercle’s approach to designing a learning experience centered on products developed through innovative processes at AIMPLAS, the Technological Institute of Plastics.

The buildings within the complex, located in the Paterna Technology Park, are interconnected by elevated walkways. They envisioned linking a new pathway to the existing circulation flows, folding it into the space like a small labyrinth.

Losing one’s sense of direction and disconnecting from the surroundings could be an effective way to focus attention on a series of nodes surrounded by Mediterranean woodland, shaping the walk as a sequence of experiential stations.

The Living Lab has provided an opportunity to create a design that contrasts the geometry of the itinerary with the organic forms of the surrounding vegetation.

Architecture and nature. This project emerges from the dialogue between these two perspectives.

The designers envisioned the AIMPLAS Living Lab · Technological Institute of Plastics as an experiential journey where visitors discover different areas, designed as capsules of information.

The walkway floats above the forest, fully immersed in greenery – just like those who walk through it. Through its structure, the ground and vegetation remain visible. At night, a continuous line of light integrated into the architecture subtly defines the path.

1,051 plants from 26 different species make up the botanical ensemble of AIMPLAS business garden. Over the course of a year, the garden has been monitored to ensure the successful establishment of the vegetation.

Pre-existing species have been integrated, and non-invasive wild plants have been preserved to avoid competition with the newly introduced species. The challenge is to allow the ecosystem to reach its own natural balance.