Starchitecture in the Periphery

I recently went on a tour guided by my friend and architect, Sandra Herrera accompanied by the head of the landscape architecture program at CEU, Cristina del Poza. Sandra was showing us all of the interesting architecture in the periphery of Madrid. Some by internationally well-known architects and others by smaller local Spanish architects. Many are also public housing.

The building on the left was designed by Dutch architects, MVRDV and was made to be a typical village plan turned vertically. The center open space is to be the plaza and frames the distant view of the mountains.

"The third largest city in Europe (Madrid) has, in fact experienced urban sprawl dominated by real estate speculation, devoid of any consistent plan and, even worse, with no concern at all for the architectural quality and livability of the districts involved. For this reason, in 2001 a number of Madrid architects were invited to develop, in collaboration with great international design studios, proposals for apartment buildings that would respond to the growing, and increasingly varied, demand for housing, but would at the same time become a kind of icon, a reference point for the whole city. "http://www.floornature.com/projects-housing/project-mirador-apartment-building-mvrdv-blanca-leo-madrid-2005-4606/

What I find disturbing in general was that an architecture competition was held to fix bad development. That by adding a few high quality designed buildings it would emeliorate the poor planning of the entire periphery? This is obviously well intentioned but completely ridiculous.

On the left is a building designed by Morphosis where they tried to integrate landscape and village typologies. I wish we could have gone inside to see the public spaces within the complex. It seems like an interesting idea and I would be curious to see how it feels.

http://www.arcspace.com/architects/morphosis/msh/msh.html

Despite the few interesting buildings the neighborhoods still have no pedestrian scale or character and lack high quality public space. It would have been more successful to integrate the architecture and landscape aspects not within one building like these examples, but throughout the neighborood. Use the architecture to punctuate important areas in an integrated landscape strategy. I think there is a lot of potential in this region of Madrid and with the stalled economy it is not too late to make alternative proposals!

And I have to say that it is admirable the the architects tried to incorporate the public space inside the building because it was obviously lacking in the urban fabric. They did not write the competition brief and could only respond with what was requested, a building. I would say the city of Madrid was short-sighted in their request. Of course, if I am wrong about any of the above please post a response!

See below some other interesting buildings from our trip.

Carabanchel, Madrid

Apartments by FOA. Facade in bamboo panels that are operable creating a constantly moving facade depending on each user. I'm a little unsure of how long bamboo will last as a facade but it is really a beautiful texture and maybe it is like cedar shake, you just have to replace it every few decades? But I especially liked what Sandra pointed out to me, that the building is on a slope and the designers added a green pedestal for the building that indexes the grade. very subtle.

They also used a pretty primative but affective green wall made of rebar, erosion control fabric and vines. Goes to show that greenwalls to not always have to be high maintenance and expensive.

http://www.farshidmoussavi.com/flash/index.html#/projects/509

greenwall detail

This building was a bit cold looking but had an interting overlapping L structure and some round perforations on the facade that added something playful (see picture below).

This tall black tower with connected low rise building was really powerful. From a distance the texture reminded me of the tough ripstop nylon on luggage or texture of a gun handle. Up close it was a black shingle of some kind. I also liked the way the windows spanned the corners. The irregular locations of the windows really made the facade seem to sparkle. I would love to see the floor plan to see the apartment typpologies that created the irregular pattern.

closer view of facade material

The bright yellow exterior was really happy. It was kind of a faux wood look.

There was a lot of experimentation with corrugated metal. In some cases it looked cold but most used really bright optimistic colors and super graphic numbers to warm it up. Since these are social housing projects the budgets were low so stretching the potential of less expensive materials was key.

I was surprised to find out that many people in Madrid prefer brick apartments because they have more of a sense of longevity, something that could be passed down to family. The more industrial corrugated metal gives them a feeling of impermanence. Although many of the brick buildings were much more unnatractive to me. It will take time to see how well these materials weather before people feel comfortable about their value.

Colorful prefab panels and pop-out windows really made this facade exciting. There is another building by the same architect in an even brighter green palette in a nearby neighborhood.

I really liked this apartment complex made to look like containers (much better effect than at Zanadu in the meadowlands!) They are staggered to create open spaces for each unit. They should do this in NYC. I would love a terrace there:)

In general I would say I admired the experiementation and optimism of these public housing complexes and applaud many of the architects for attempting to add the public spaces within the buildings where they were lacking in the neighborhood. But if this kind of creativity and experimentation were integrated with the public spaces it would truly be an amazing place to live.

And thank you to Sandra for an excellent tour and Cristina for wonderful company and driving skills:)