This circle-pocked landscape might look like a scene from an M. Night Shyamalan movie, but it’s actually a green-roofed waste treatment facility! Instead of digging a completely new landfill, Batlle i Roig converted an already ecologically-degraded trashheap in the Spanish municipality of Vacarisses into a waste treatment plant. This award-winning project is completely self-sustaining and boasts a striking geometric green roof design that looks a lot like crop circles!

The new treatment center overlies a landfill that had almost reached full capacity. Instead of walking away from that now damaged land, the designers took the utmost care to integrate new environmental services into the old facility. A long roof pocked with circular patches of indigenous plant species and occasionally earth and gravel makes the Waste Treatment Center barely visible from the surrounding landscape.

Called a CTRV in Spanish, the Battle i Roig project also receives all of its water from rainwater collection, and biogas produced by the original waste provides the facility’s requisite energy. Large skylights punctuate the roof as well, flooding the center with daylighting and further reducing the energy load. For their amazing work, Batlle i Roig won the World Production, Energy and Recycling building of the year from the 2011 World Architecture Festival.

+ Battle i Roig Arquitectes