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Civic Campus Sallarès Deu is JAAS’s conversion of a former textile factory in Sabadell, Spain, into an educational and civic complex. Designed originally in 1920 by Lluís Muncunill, the industrial site is being reorganized as a connected campus with a culinary school, restored courtyards, greenhouse-like atria and reversible timber construction. JAAS lists 8,294 m² and a 2020–2025 project period.
What Civic Campus Sallarès Deu is
The Ajuntament de Sabadell commissioned JAAS to transform the Sallarès Deu textile complex into shared civic infrastructure rather than preserve it as a static artifact. The project retains the identity of the industrial buildings while making them usable for learning, gathering and future programs.
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ArchDaily classifies the work as educational architecture, adaptive reuse and sustainability. JAAS’s own project description presents the transformation as an example of “spatial restitution, bioclimatic intelligence, and reversibility.” The project is associated with 2025 in architectural coverage, while the architect’s page dates the overall work from 2020 to 2025. Other published descriptions place construction between 2022 and 2025.
Why the former factory matters to Sabadell
Sabadell’s urban identity was shaped by textile production throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Sallarès Deu belongs to that industrial landscape, so the intervention treats its halls, courtyards and masonry not simply as old fabric to be retained, but as a framework for contemporary public life.
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That approach changes the usual preservation question. Instead of asking how to isolate the factory, the scheme asks how its spatial structure can support education, coexistence and changing civic uses. The buildings remain individually legible, yet the campus is reorganized so visitors can understand and move through the complex as a whole.
Three design moves organize the transformation
1. Restoring the solid–void balance
Earlier alterations had concealed parts of the façades and weakened the relationship between built volumes and open space. JAAS brings the original façades back into view and reinstates interstitial courtyards. Lightweight, greenhouse-like structures cover these courtyards, allowing them to function as active shared spaces instead of leftover gaps between buildings.
2. Making separate buildings read as one campus
The industrial complex is reorganized around clearer routes and shared spaces. A transverse entrance hall links the culinary-school building to a bioclimatic atrium, helping visitors read the former factory as a coherent civic destination while preserving the independence of its component buildings.
3. Planning for changing uses
Each building can accommodate an autonomous use and can evolve without forcing a total reconstruction of the site. This is a practical form of heritage protection: future work can be concentrated in new, removable elements while the historic envelope remains intact.
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The culinary school inside the industrial building
The culinary school is the campus’s principal educational anchor. Rather than subdividing the original factory volume with permanent partitions, JAAS places a freestanding timber structure inside it. Classrooms and support spaces are contained in the inserted frame, leaving the existing envelope visible and making the intervention easier to alter or remove.
The entrance hall crosses the building to connect directly with the bioclimatic atrium. Beneath it, a naturally lit basement contains an auditorium, cooking workshops and other educational rooms arranged around a central courtyard. Bringing daylight into this lower level helps turn what could have been a service zone into usable teaching and assembly space.
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How timber, CLT and atria support reversibility
Prefabricated timber insertions
New elements use solid timber and cross-laminated timber (CLT). The components are prefabricated and rapidly assembled, reducing the need for wet construction inside the retained factory. Their demountable character is important: a later operator can reconfigure or dismantle the inserted school spaces without demolishing the historic halls.
Passive climate regulation
The greenhouse atriums are environmental devices as well as social rooms. During colder months, they capture solar heat and temper air entering the buildings. In warmer periods, they assist natural ventilation and heat dissipation. Existing masonry walls and underground volumes provide thermal inertia, moderating temperature swings and reducing dependence on mechanical conditioning.
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This strategy does not mean the campus operates without building services; the published descriptions establish the passive principles, not a measured energy-performance result. Its value is the combination of climate moderation, daylight, circulation and communal use in the same spatial system.
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| Item | Published information |
|---|---|
| Location | Sabadell, Spain |
| Original building | Textile factory designed in 1920 by Lluís Muncunill |
| Client | Ajuntament de Sabadell |
| Architect | JAAS |
| Area | 8,294 m², according to JAAS’s project page |
| Overall project period | 2020–2025, according to JAAS |
| Construction period reported in coverage | 2022–2025 |
| Primary program | Civic campus with a culinary school and educational spaces |
JAAS was led by Josep M. Julià, Albert Clèries, Jordi Gorgues and Manuel Julià. Mor Arquitectura Tècnica SLP provided technical architecture; Joan A. Gonzàlez Gou handled engineering and sustainability; Jordi Oliveras Reder was responsible for structures; and Adrià Goula photographed the completed work.
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How to read the project’s sustainability claims
- Retained fabric: Existing halls, masonry walls, underground volumes and the original halls-and-courtyards logic remain active parts of the design.
- Reversible additions: Freestanding CLT and timber elements avoid treating the historic envelope as a disposable interior shell.
- Low-impact assembly: Prefabrication and potential future disassembly are central advantages of the new construction.
- Passive moderation: Greenhouse atria, daylight and thermal mass work together before mechanical systems are required.
- Adaptability: Independent buildings can host changing uses without compromising the campus-wide circulation strategy.
Area discrepancy and what remains unconfirmed
Published sources do not agree on the project area. JAAS lists 8,294 m², while an ArchDaily result reports 82,942 m². The architect’s figure is used here because it appears on the practice’s own project page; the larger figure should not be treated as settled without clarification.
The available project descriptions also do not establish an authoritative public-opening schedule, visitor policy or operating institution. Those details may be determined by the Ajuntament de Sabadell or the school’s eventual operator and should be checked directly before planning a visit.
Why Sallarès Deu is a useful adaptive-reuse model
The project’s significance lies in linking heritage, education and environmental performance instead of treating them as separate objectives. Restored courtyards make the former factory more accessible; the culinary school gives the buildings a demanding everyday use; and demountable timber construction leaves room for future change. For other industrial conversions, the relevant benchmarks are the amount of historic fabric retained, how reversible the new work is, the quality of public programming, the effectiveness of passive environmental measures, the independence of adaptable spaces and the project’s contribution to wider urban regeneration.
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