The district of 22@ in Poblenou is the materialisation of an urban model for Barcelona. It is in this neighbourhood, which was a base for industrial plants for over 100 years, where the new, intense, hybrid, knowledge-based city is to be developed. The new production zone, which is structured around La Diagonal, is to be one of the foremost central locations within metropolitan Barcelona. It is surrounded by residential neighbourhoods in an area of high-quality urban development, with new open spaces and modern infrastructure systems; the new buildings and the old industrial structures that have been refitted are to be used as dwellings as well as housing knowledge-based tertiary-sector and new economic activities, and there will also be new structures for educational purposes, continuous training, research, knowledge dissemination, culture, sport, welfare and community life.

The 22@ plan breaks down the exclusive industrial land-use pattern, looking for complexity and harmony of different uses, such as non-polluting industrial activities, technology, housing, offices, small shops, hotels, and facilities linked to production and to community life. There are incentives to attract tertiary urban activities, which make intensive use of space and information and communications technology, and which employ a highly-qualified workforce, thereby overcoming the current low densities in these areas in order to reach a critical mass to create economies of proximity based around a compact-city model.

Housing, which includes the reclassification of industrial land, new public-sector promoted housing and non-conventional housing in rehabilitated industrial buildings, co-exists with the tertiary sector and the 10% of land destined for purposes linked to the production process under the Equipaments 7@ programme, which will take in activities connected to training, research and the dissemination of new technologies, as well as covering the needs defined in the Poblenou Facilities Plan.