Embroidering the Edge

TEAM DATA

Team Representative: Nuria Prieto González (ES) – architect; Associates: Omar Curros Simón (ES), Diego Lucio Barral (ES), Hugo Malvar Álvarez (ES), Ángel Montero Pérez (ES) – architects

Ronda de Nelle 144, 2°C, 15010 A Coruña – España
+34 661 825 665 – from1984to1989@gmail.com

See the complete listing of portraits here 
See the site page here 

^{H. Malvar Álvarez, Á. Montero Pérez, D. Lucio Barral, O. Curros Simón & N. Prieto}

INTERVIEW
^{Click on the images to enlarge}

1. How did you form the team for the competition?

We met at the A Coruña School of Architecture and decided to join up to work on a project together, as we have recently obtained our masters degree.

2. How do you define the main issue of your project, and how did you answer on this session main topic: Adaptability through Self-Organization, Sharing and/or Project (Process)?

Our project is defined by the idea of recovering and redefining, bearing in mind the pass of time, as Cedric Price said “Like medicine, architecture must move from curative to the preventive”. Adaptability and self-organization come from this idea of recovering the values and redefining a new future for the area in a preventive manner.

3. How did this issue and the questions raised by the site mutation meet?

Complexity emerged in first place. Defining the area of our project became the main struggle, so the project could make sense in a metropolitan term. Finally we decided to work with layers to define the different uses, perceptions and walks around the project. This strategy led to the project in a natural progression and it became autonomous and self-problem solver.

4. Have you treated this issue previously? What were the reference projects that inspired yours?

During our student years, urbanism was one of the main subjects at our school of Architecture. Professor Manolo Gallego taught us the importance of the place, its morphology, its perception and evolution involving the human being as both a host and a developer of its environment. In some of the projects developed during the student years we always kept in mind those ideas on urbanism. Our references were mostly anonymous: architectures without architects, like the Varansi Ghats or traditional fishing constructions, among other similar interventions.

5. Today –at the era of economic crisis and sustainability– the urban-architectural project should reconsider its production method in time; how did you integrate this issue in your project?

We propose a project focusing on recovering. Crisis and sustainability are solved trough sensitivity and simple action ideas.

6. Is it the first time you have been awarded a prize at Europan? How could this help you in your professional career?

It is the first time we have received a Europan award. We sincerely hope this prize can help us be considered as self-conscious architects with a deep emotion in architecture and also demonstrate that despite we are young, we can contribute to architecture in a very mature manner.