Urban Catalogue
Cantù (IT) - Special Mention
TEAM DATA
Associates: Adriana Vázquez Balló (ES), Víctor Vázquez Balló (ES) – architects
info@odarquitectura.net
www.odarquitectura.net
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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?
Urban catalogue is an inclusive and open project of multiple actions to reactivate Cantú. This to-do list is a global plan for the recovery of this location focusing ecological, social and cultural issues. Supported with four strategies, we propose an urban collection conformed by 18 actions about urban and ordinary domestics.
2. How did the issues of your design and the questions raised by the site mutation meet?
Cantú is a case of an urban fabric which seems already finished. However, understanding the old city centre as an open metabolism can be a challenge. Lately, urbanism has simplified the urban transformations into the horizontal plan: changing the pavement, planting trees, etc. Nevertheless, Urban Catalogue assume the vertical plan as important as the horizontal plan. Opening the shops, permeabilizing the museums or domesticate the urban space are one of the topics.
PROJECT:
This was just a new pocket on the same travel bag. We are already doing a series of playgrounds in Barcelona after an open competition which picks up the idea of an activated façade and how to domesticate forgotten and already made places. For us, it’s really important the Nollis plan. It recollects the conception of opening palaces. At the same time, books such as The street and the house of Xavier Monteys or My house, your city of Fernanda Canales are our spiritual guides.
SITE:
In our case, the project is an inclusive and open process which can accept many changes and actors. Also it is a project that can be conceived by phases.
REFERENCES:
We are two siblings who are doing many competitions on the road. We understand the competition system as an opportunity to make more interesting things and a way of experimentation.
6. How could this prize help you in your professional career?
We see it as a friendly pat on the back. We have to keep on the way.
TEAM IDENTITY
Legal status: Freelance Architects
Team name: Od’A Arquitectura
Average age of the associates: 31 years old
Has your team, together or separately, already conceived or implemented some projects and/or won any competition? if so, which ones?
Yes, we have won a First Prize in the Rehabilitation of the Castle of Hostalric (Spain) with José María Sánchez Garcia, First Prize in a series of Playgrounds of Barcelona and a First Prize ex-aequo in the new Municipal Archive of Roses, among others.
WORKS:
