Located along the Somorrostro beach's arcades, opposite Hospital del Mar, it provides a space for information, meetings and training for anyone interested in Barcelona’s coastline and its related aspects.
Launched in 2006 by Barcelona City Council, the Beach Centre offers a range of services, from exhibitions, workshops, routes, storytelling sessions, shows, informal discussions and games to information on the coastline, free loan of beach-games and more.
Sea, sand and marine diversity are the Beach Centre’s central attractions. It offers a programme of free activities and the Beach Laboratory.
As an environmental education facility, the Beach Centre will be open Tuesdays to Sundays from 10 am to 2 pm, from 1 April to 31 October. It provides for consultations and bookings in person, by phone (932 565 194) or email (centreplatja@bcn.cat).
The Beach Laboratory
The facility also has a Beach Laboratory, a travelling module that covers Barcelona's beaches and takes part in special events, to offer city residents and beach users a range of educational activities for discovering the marine and coastal ecosystem. Work in different fields is carried out there, including microplastics, Barcelona's coastal fauna and flora and sand and sea water, as well as the cross-cutting effects and consequences of climate change. The activities are offered to passers-by as well as groups that have booked in advance.
Activities
As for activities, whether for groups or individuals, the facility offers routes and guided tours around the coastal area (the beach, coastal neighbourhoods such as Barceloneta and Poble Nou, the port etc.,) and marine-biodiversity discovery activities, including family workshops and documentary screenings that everyone is welcome to attend. A host of group activities are also offered, aimed at various types of participants (children, young people, adults and elderly people), and can be requested by any collective (libraries, youth clubs, schools, summer camps, youth centres, old people’s centres etc.)
The Beach Centre has room for temporary exhibitions on Barcelona's coastal area and its historical and natural history. The coastal area's transformation is a major goal for this environmental education centre, which is dedicated to promoting Barcelona's coastal area, its environmental wealth, the marine ecosystem and a civic and sustainable use of the city's beaches.
At the same time, the Beach Centre will be tasked with channelling and coordinating the network of awareness activities and waste collection exercises at the beaches and on the seabed along the Barcelona coast.The main goal is to coordinate the various entities wishing to carry out awareness work on our poor everyday practices (citizens, companies and organisations) when it comes to waste, meaning it ends up in the sea and the sand etc. and has a negative impact on marine biodiversity.
The goal is to transmit educational messages which foster good practice from the very beginning, remind people of the importance of conserving biodiversity and so on. We do this through waste collection exercises on the coast with volunteers who want to get involved, coordinated by an environmental entity and following a protocol that ensures safety. Anyone interested in taking part as a volunteer in these initiatives can contact the Beach Centre and find out how to take part.
Last but not least, note that the Beach Centre is promoting all its activities in collaboration with other entities, associations and collectives linked to Barcelona’s coastal areas, by boosting collaborative networking, for example, with the Barceloneta says 0 Plastic! platform. Users, will also have a meeting room at their disposal for holding training sessions or meetings and taking advantage of the available resources (computers, projector, blackboard, WiFi, etc.)
