Cambiando La Ciudad

How do you turn the problem of a polluted site into an architectural potential? A third of our budget was allocated to remove our polluted topsoil. By covering the site with a wooden deck we could leave the soil where it was and invest the money on the building rather than the site’s polluted topsoil. The result is a public landscape of social functions surrounded by water on all sides.??Two very different users had to share the facilities: a…

From our point of view, this concerns the articulation of aspects ranging from the physical (urban, infrastructural and environmental), social (economical, cultural and existential), ecological (considering three kinds: mental, social and environmental) and those related to citizen´s safety, and the contemporary persona problematic, appointing on local development from a socio-spatial conception of productive territories. This is in direct relationship with the privileged adyacent neighborhoods of Gavea, Leblon and São Conrado, establishing a very particular situation of inclusion-exclusion.  Like this,…

Designing is a tool for change. I rethink our interaction with spaces, objects and each other, exploring habits within society and how they can be exploited to create pro environmental behaviour change. Skips offer fleeting chances for everyone to intervene in a material’s journey to landfill. This body of work makes use of materials found in skips as well as the framework the skip offers for claiming space, especially in packed urban environments. The outcomes of this process are…

Group of collectives (Democracia, Todo por la Praxis, y Recetas Urbanas), in partnership with “Asociación el Fanal” in the construction of some benches for a football field and recreational activities, in a neighborhood with a problematic socioeconomic situation and an exterior image degraded by a media campaign of exclusion and penalization. The proposal, with different actions in the organizational structure and in the imagination of the neighborhood, is greeted with enthusiasm by members of the association as well as…

Currently more than 40% of Caracas’ inhabitants live in informal settlements or shanty towns know as barrios. The massive exodus from rural areas to the city as a consequence of the oil boom in the 50’s largely influenced the origins of these unplanned neighborhoods of uncontrolled growths. Located at the South West of the city, with an area of 400 ha and 95,000 inhabitants, the Barrio La Vega y one of the most extensive and lived-in informal settlements in…

“Low Cost – Dream Home – Low Environmental Impact”, these are the three key principles (the first financial, the second social and the third environmental) behind the €100,000 Home research project that launches a new concept of residential housing. The project is an attempt to find an effective solution to the issues of affordable costs, low pollutant emissions and genuinely attractive housing. The house has a bright, lively design that readily adapts to the needs of different residents and lifestyles,…

The car park for the press on the Cologne fair ground is located at the spot where the connecting road between Deutz and Mühlheim passes under the bridge Zoobrücke surrounded by streets with different functional and spatial levels. A bewildering but also typical situation of unaccounted for urban space. A functional site in essence, devoid of particular attractiveness - urban „leftovers”. The triangular carpark has a short, open side towards the Deutz-Mühlheimer-Strasse, and a longer and spatially more active…

It is both necessary and urgent to encourage projects that have global strategic potential, so that they can be locally implemented in order to face current global sustainability challenges such as climate change, water scarcity and poverty. The Ecohouse project was created in 2002 with that in mind, together with the individual contribution each citizen can and should make to these objectives. It seeks to demonstrate the performance of thermal and lighting comfort passive techniques, as well as water…

The whole proposal for the eco-boulevard in Vallecas can be defined as an urban recycling operation consisting of the following actions: insertion of an air tree-social dynamizer, over an existing urbanization area, densification of existing alignment trees and reduction and asymmetric arrangement of wheeled traffic circulation. Superficial interventions reconfiguring the existing urbanization (perforations, fillings, paint, etc.) that defaces the executed kerb development. RECYCLING THE NON-CITY The Suburban Development of Vallecas had all the very poor characteristics typical of suburban developments.…

Located in the heart of a neighborhood with a strong artistic vein, where galleries and street walls offer a great variety for new expression and occupation forms, this studio building occupies a site that’s marked by frequent floods. Like a living body, the building questions – inside its context – the construction as a finished and manufactured object, bringing to light different phases of its evolution under the action of dynamic interconnected entities (rain / recovery / pumping /…