What we do
Civic Engagement. We adopt and develop physical and digital tools and methodologies for participation, that favor interaction, empowerment, and social relations. Our projects develop in parallel a technical design process and a social or participative one with activities of listening, communicating, learning, innovating and transforming action. We apply this toolkit both when planning on a territorial scale as to the scale of public space. Participation is a way to enable the creation of more democratic, inclusive and open ended environments.
Climatic Design. Through strategies of very low or zero energy consumption, we conceive solutions for open spaces that adapt to the climate, using available natural and cultural resources. We aim to create public spaces that can be climatically comfortable enabling social interaction and public life all year round, which is, especially in extreme climates, an important factor in improving the quality of urban life.
Hybrid Architecture. Combining design, engineering solutions, and management processes focused on people and the environment, we develop an adaptive architecture seeking to maximize its sustainability in the present and over time. We intend architecture as an open framework that dynamically responds and adapts to the constantly changing needs of users and the context. Buildings that become demonstrative devices of sustainable principles, and catalysts, enablers or facilitators of urban change and activation.
Interactive Places. By creating ‘physital’ spaces people can interact with, obtain information from, or even adapt to their own needs, our work contributes to the empowerment of smart citizens. This is possible through a digital layer that, using available technologies such as sensors, controllers, actuators and mobile applications, adds a new dimension to public space and broadens the experience of inhabiting the city. Our aspiration is not building an automated “intelligent city”, but promoting a generation of “intelligent citizens” who consciously use their data and digital tools to adapt their environment to their own needs.
Resilient Environments. To establish a lasting and mutually beneficial relationship with our environment it is necessary to understand how places and communities will respond over time, both in critical times and in long-term ever-changing scenarios. To this end, we bring a flexible way of thinking about how design and creativity can help to cope with urban vulnerabilities and threats. Combining technical interventions with a social agenda, our work helps to build resilient communities around the principles of participation and environmental education.
Urban Activation. Our work sparks the activation of the complex and interconnected processes that act in the city. Starting from a minutious analysis of the context we seek to complement the strategic vision of urban development with a tactical, agile, action-oriented approach and the production of tangible results and experiences of transformation. In a process of constant feedback, the results of these “early activation” projects allow us to revise the design criteria and adjust the long-term vision.
