Marta Delgado

RETHINKING EQUALITY. Vallbona

Marta Delgado Lombardo . Project class at Escola Superior d’Arquitectura de Catalunya (ESARQ)

We want to rethink equality through the pop culture. We recognize in it a relational power to move people in an equal way (concerts, fashion, social networks, television etc.), and question its role in political and social life. We aim to be architects designing from collective referents to foster relational exchanges as the instrument for building a more democratic society. What can architects re-signify from the popular culture? For this project we picked the values of generation of exchange, collective experience, variability and diversity.

The chosen site is a mine for possibilities of exchange. A piece of farmed land in the outskirts of Barcelona, between big urban infrastructures and natural formations. The adjacent village is Vallbona, a town that appeared thanks to the ancient Rec Comtal, a natural stream that raises out next to our site before disappearing in the subsoil of the city.
We tried to revitalize the program of “unifamiliar housing” from our beloved schools of architecture, with the intention of re-thinking the house as a place to socialize, merging the domestic with the public space. The result is a social infrastructure which strengthens the encounter of family members and other local people. We propose opening the space to games, walks, parties, art, talking, singing, sleeping, loving, cooking, cleaning… the daily life that can be carried out outdoors.
Some contemporary artists work with amorphic dynamic systems that suggest a state of constant change. Inspired by them we designed a bended tubular metal structure with flexible coverings and repeated the module in radial symmetry. We designed the spaces for the activities that would be developed and added them together fomenting mobility and transformability. The result is an architectural collage through social practices.

RETHINKING EQUALITY
Unifamiliar housing