Article 10 of the Europan 18 Results Catalogue
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Read the article « Mediation and Duration, Two Strategies to Re-Articulate Urban Relationships » extracted from the E18 Catalogue of the Results
The article is written by Carlos Arroyo Zapatero (ES), PhD architect, urbanist, teacher at Universidad Europea de Madrid, office CarlosArroyo Architects and Nicolás Martínez Rueda (ES), architect, founder of the architectural competition for students DOCEXDOCE.
In many Europan 18 sites, urban quality exists but is fragmented: infrastructures interruptnatural and social continuities, buildings remain present yet disconnected from theirsurroundings, and everyday life unfolds in spaces that do not communicate. The key challenge is to rearticulate relationships between these heterogeneous elements.
- Mediation: spatial interfaces and relational frameworks
Through architectural language, ground formation, spatial morphology, geometric networks, shared green structures or infrastructural frameworks, the projects construct new urbanrelationships by making connections visible and inhabitable. Urbanity emerges from the waydifferent systems are brought into relation and held in productive balance.
- Duration: time, process and openended transformation
Urban relationships are built gradually through reuse, sequencing, memory, care and longtermprocesses. Instead of aiming for immediate spatial coherence, the projects establishframeworks that let relationships evolve, accumulate and adapt. Here, urbanity stems fromduration rather than resolution.
From this perspective, urban relationships are not directly designed but emerge through slow territorial transformation. Building on initial interventions, a former railway strip becomes a lagoonbased public space, while a stadium is reprogrammed as a productive landscape. These actions generate a redefinition of transitional spaces, enhancing territorial legibility that willintensify over time.
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