Zipper City

TEAM DATA

Team Representative: Rodrigo Nuñez Carrasco (ES) – Architect; Contributor: Paula Pérez Araluce (ES), Federico Martínez De Sola (ES), Juan Antonio Fuentes Brito (ES) – Students in Architecture

Vallehermoso 21-1ºF, 28015 Madrid, (ES)
+34659441986 - info@rodrigonunez.es 

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

^{R. Nuñez Carrasco}

INTERVIEW

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

I founded my office, Rodrigo Nuñez Arquitectos, more than ten years ago, and during this time I have counted with the contribution of many collaborators, many of whom have been previously my students at the university. This is the case of Paula, Federico and Juan who have collaborated in this project.

2. How do you define the main issue of your project, and how did you answer on this session main topic: the place of productive activities within the city?

The project site is a clear example of residual space between the different urban fragments that form the metropolitan periphery of a city like Madrid. The main objective of the project has been to reverse its current identity as a space that divides the city to become a space of new centrality, sewing the city (Zipper City) and stimulating relations of proximity between residential areas, productive spaces and public spaces.

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

This transformation of the site occurs through the reactivation, reprogramming and renaturation of this type of residual spaces, as well as by the insertion of new typological models of each of the present uses. The result is a hybrid landscape that combines urban and natural qualities, central and peripheral potentials, and productive, recreational and residential uses. The intervention becomes a great ecological infrastructure in all senses, as this new kind of hybrid urban landscape allows new ways of social, economic, and environmental interaction.

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

Using the potential of spaces that separate different urban fragments (whether morphological, social, etc.) to create a new hybrid urban condition is one of the lines of work in our office. This project is understood within a line of work in which other projects previously carried out would be included. On the one hand, we can mention projects such as our proposal for the international competition for the renovation of Plaza de España in Madrid, where we got the second prize, or our proposal for Europan11 Vienna site, where we were finalist. In both of them we proposed this new kind of hybrid urban landscape that allows new ways of social, economic, and environmental interaction. On the other hand, we can also include other non-urban projects such as our proposal for Montecarmelo Library in Madrid, where we proposed a hybrid interior public space, which can also allow these new types of interactions.

Time and the different actors involved in a project are also fundamental issues in our work. We understand architecture as an open process in time and even socially. An architecture capable of transforming according to the social demands of each moment, that is to say, not only for the current ones but also for the future ones.

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

No, this is the second time I have participated and I have been also awarded at Europan. The previous time was at Europan11 in Vienna, where our project was finalist. Being awarded is always stimulating and it reinforces you in the convictions of your work and gives you renewed energies to continue developing your professional work.

TEAM IDENTITY

Office: Rodrigo Nuñez Arquitectos
Functions: Architecture
Average age of the associates: 39 years old

Has your team, together or separately, already conceived or implemented some projects and/or won any competition? If yes, which ones?

Yes, I have been running my office for more than ten years, and during this time I have developed and built several projects and got some prizes in different competitions.

• Selection of award-winning works:
• First prize in the competition for a social residential development in the Pyrenees for the Regional Government of Navarra, Spain (2019). This project is under construction.
• Second prize in the International Competition for the Renovation of the Plaza de España in Madrid, Spain (2017).
• Finalist in the XIII Brick Architecture Prize with the project “House in the Forest” (2015), a built single-family house of 800 m2 in León, Spain
• Finalist in the Europan11 Vienna site with the project “The street in the forest” (2011)
• Second Prize in the competition for a Sports Centre in Logroño, Spain (2007)
• Second Prize in the competition for the extension and rehabilitation of the old Telefónica Building in León, Spain (2005) Second Prize in the competition for a social residential building in Madrid, Spain (2005)