Urban Toolkit

TEAM DATA

Team Representative: Lara Freire Romero (ES) – architect; Associates: Irene Climent Silvar (ES), Iñigo Cornago Bonal (ES), Antonio García Martos (ES), Claudia Sánchez Fernández (ES), Mario Vila Quelle (ES) – architects

Calle Pez 27, oficina 316, 28004 Madrid – España
+34 635 839 017 – urbantoolkit@gmail.com

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

^{A. García Martos, M. Vila Quelle, I. Climent Silvar, C. Sánchez Fernández, I. Cornago Bonal & L. Freire Romero}

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

We met in architecture school and we now share a collaborative working space.

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 proposal provides a set of tools that, combining spatial, socio-economical, legal and environmental regards, allows diverse agents to collaborate in transforming Selb into a more resilient city. The proposal is understood as an open process, sensitive and reactive to a changing context and the interaction between urban agents. The role of the Office for Urban Regeneration (OUR) is key to mediate and guide the process through its development.

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

The problematic related to the site is so complex that it cannot be answered from a single approach or with a sole intervention. In order to tackle these issues we propose an open process combining different disciplines and perspectives to implement partial interventions with a common horizon. As a result the proposal adapts to context through time and focuses on the collaboration of different sectors of society through mediation.

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

The current context has led to a reconsideration of the role of architects in society and traditional urban planning methods and accordingly, we are constantly dealing with these questions in our practices and through our projects. To develop them we have a wide variety of references. In our immediate environment we learn for example from “Campo de Cebada”, a citizen self-managed public space in the centre of Madrid. We also look at innovative projects as the transformation of existing dwellings described by Lacaton & Vassal in the publication “Plus” or ”Dreamhamar”, Ecosistema Urbano’s co-design process of a square in Norway. However, there is a long tradition on facing these issues, for example projects like Cedric Price’s “Potteries Thinkbelt” or the Jane Jacobs’s experiences as well as Henri Lefebvre’s the influential books.

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?

Urban Toolkit takes this issue into account from the core of the proposal. As a result, various answers are given –in the shape of urban tools– to a single situation. The scale, complexity and ambitions of the tools go according with the context and the agents involved. And its range goes from small actions –as painting a new pedestrian cross road– to deeper transformations –such as changing several individual garages into a hybrid new building and their backyards into a common shared space. Therefore, time and agents play a crucial role in the development of the project that has an open outcome.

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

Yes, it is the first time that we have been awarded as a team. However, some of the team members were awarded with a runner-up prize in a previous Europan edition.
At the moment, we are looking forward to implementing some of the project ideas, testing them and continuing learning from this process.