Second Life

Roquetas de Mar (ES) - Runner-up

TEAM DATA

Associates: Romain Lucas (FR), Belén Ramos Jiménez (ES) – architects, Carlos Ramos Jiménez (ES), Carmen María Blasco Castro (ES) – sociologists

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TEAM PORTRAIT

VIDEO (by the team)

INTERVIEW
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1. How did you form the team for the competition?
Graduated from Nantes and Granada’s high school, we use to work together on competition and architectural project that question the notions of patrimony, materiality, time, landscape or production in the city. We especially worked with Carlos and Carmen to respond to europan 16 because they work (or they have worked) on subjects in relation with Roquetas del Mar like food production in the city and immigration

2. How do you define the main issue of your project, and how did you answer on this session main topic, Living cities?
The project seeks to reveal all the heritage present in the territory of Roquetas de mar in order to give it an important place in the project “second life” To get this target, we propose an extended definition of patrimony that allows to highlight different existing elements such as heritage, local materials, daily practices, Poniente’s landscape, etc. Then we introduced those patrimonials elements in order to develop a city that can evolve and adapt itself according to the economic, demographic or ecological pressures that the territory has to face. 

3. How did the issues on metabolic and inclusive vitalities and the questions raised by the site mutation meet?
We focused our attention on recycling materials, whether they are present as organic waste, inert or as abandoned buildings (since the construction of the villages of colonization or since the economic crisis of 2008). The tool “Second life” is a process of recovery and reuse of those “wastes” that re-introduce them in the various interventions proposed.
4. Have you treated this issue previously? What were the reference projects that inspired yours?
Re-using and transforming that already existing instead of building new constructions should be the standard. The conservation of the structure in the Palais of Tokyo (Lacaton et Vassal), the utilization of cultural material in Living poseidonia (Carles Oliver) or the preservation of the biodiversity in the base sous-marine in Saint Nazaire (Gilles Clément) are exemples that lead the project. We are always looking for recycling buildings or heritage (in our academic research works) or for permitting variations of the temporality of use in the public space (in our professional competitions).
5. Urban-architectural projects like the ones in Europan can only be implemented together with the actors through a negotiated process and in time. How did you consider this issue in your project?
We started from the premise of a strong political desire for the recovery of built heritage. Then we have base the project on a hypothetical evolution of the city’s urban planning code in order to allow the development of a future architectural proposal with the aim of linking a political envy with an architectural design As a process, the project proposes acupunturales interventions that are adaptables and adjustables according to the needs of the differentes actors from the city.

6. Is it the first time you have been awarded a prize at Europan? How could this help you in your professional career?
It's the first time we have been awarded in Europan. It’s giving us confidence in our work. Now, we are hoping to have opportunities to confront our ideas to the specificities of the real.

TEAM IDENTITY
Office:
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Function: architecture & sociology
Average age of the associates: 28 years old