Berrelikatu

Berrelikatu (ES) - Special Mention

TEAM DATA

Associates: Carmen Benítez Merino (ES), Juan Mateos Corona (ES) – architects

juanmateoscorona@gmail.com

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TEAM PORTRAIT

INTERVIEW
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1. How do you define the main issue of your project in relation with the theme “Living Cities Imagining architecture taking care of the milieus”? And in which way do you think your project can contribute to an ecological and/or social evolution?
It is pertinent to understand architecture as a device capable of deploying mediations and weaving relationships between existing actants. Understand the construction process beyond a building process, as a technical mediation procedure. This interpretation offers a criterion for the analysis of modern architecture that transcends stylistic frameworks. It is not about inventing new formal or spatial resources for the discipline as an end in itself, but rather allowing other existing realities to be incorporated into the conversation of the project from an ecosystem perspective, thus architecture would be the means by which, if In a collaborative way, the agents involved materialize the (best) reassembly of their networks.  

2. How did the issues of your design and the questions raised by the site mutation meet?
The project transcends the physical limits of the pre-existing building, it is considered as a protocol of action in obsolete industrial buildings through its resignification. The structural characteristics of the old AIBE building allow us to read it as a flexible support with a great capacity to experiment with new typologies capable of addressing the global challenges of the 21st century. In this case it is interpreted as an inhabited water purification infrastructure. At a time when energy debates are more pertinent than ever, water remains in the background, yet the way we produce, distribute and consume it mobilizes our societies, shapes our metropolises and dramatically transforms our geographies. more radical than any other energy source.

PROJECT:

3. Have you treated these issues previously? What were the reference projects that inspired yours?
Yes, it is a recurring research topic in all our projects.

SITE:

4. How can your project be implemented together with the actors through a negotiated process and in time. How did you consider this issue in your project?
The project contemplated the different legal states that the building had to go through before the project could be fully materialized. Therefore, different levels of action and an experimentation phase of different uses and programs were proposed that would allow the building to be adapted over time.

REFERENCES:

5. How did you form the team for the competition and if so what are the skills you associated?
We have been colleagues since our university studies, collaborating on different projects before, and we shared an interest in exploring the possibilities of rehabilitating an old industrial building.

6. How could this prize help you in your professional career?
In some way it helps to consolidate a still experimental way of doing projects.

TEAM IDENTITY
Legal status: 
Architecture office
Team name: Carmen Benítez Merino & Juan Mateos Corona
Average age of the associates: 30 years old

Has your team, together or separately, already conceived or implemented some projects and/or won any competition? if so, which ones?
We have both won prizes in different competitions. The most important being the special mention in the last edition of Europan in the Beizama location, the first prize for the development of 31 social housing in Madrid and the first prize for the park development of “Ángela Ramírez Calero” en Herrera del Duque.