Generative Care

Växjö (SE) - Winner

TEAM DATA

Associates: Henrik Almquist (SE), Oscar Aparicio Chavez (BO), Léa Ganteil (FR) – architects, Morgane Martin-Alonzo (DE) – architect urbanist

henrik@a-a-a.se

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TEAM PORTRAIT

VIDEO (by the team)

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?
Generative Care is about taking care of existing structures, identifying their specific potential and proposing a way forward of reuse instead of demolition. An approach that applies both to the scale of the materials, building structures and the urban context, the proposal also reconnects the hospital site with the city, the surrounding nature and water.

2. How did the issues of your design and the questions raised by the site mutation meet?
During the process of working with the site we realised that it only made sense to design a method, in different phases, that could take into account the large complexity mediates between different interest groups and the associated political debate. Emphasizing an informed decision-making Generative Care recognizes the agency of nature, material and social realities in shaping the project.

PROJECT:

Reusing strucutres and materials in the new landscape

3. Have you treated these issues previously? What were the reference projects that inspired yours?
The working process was mainly dealing with perceptions and references from the site, trying to understand the ground. However, projects such as Pasteur à Rennes by Encore Heureux proved important, a renovation project of ancient laboratory proposing a mix programming meeting the inhabitant initiatives.

SITE:

Finding new uses for materials and structures

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?
One month from competition deadline, the politicians of the region decided to revoke the decision of moving the hospital to a new site, it was going to stay! With the brief totally changed, we developed our approach of an open-ended method, leaving the site to speak for itself. Giving the possibility of the evolving site to coexist with the operating hospital.

REFERENCES:

Office Oblique - Europan Productive Cities

5. How did you form the team for the competition and if so what are the skills you associated?
Having meet during our time in Paris, we had talked for a while of doing a competition together, Europan being on the horizon. With different profiles and experiences, we have formed a strong team that have dealt with different scales, programmes and materials in our professional lives.

6. How could this prize help you in your professional career?
Apart from hoping in a continued commission, our winning proposal will be an important reference in our continued work to propose a collaborative urban approach and in developing abilities and specific knowledge to transform existing structures with reused materials.

TEAM IDENTITY
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Team name:
Average age of the associates: 31 years old