Ane Arce and Iñigo Berasategui, from the Basque architecture studio AZAB, was commissioned to carry out this project to recover an area of public space in the city of Mallabia, in Vizcaya, Spain.

The AZAB project proposes an update of the traditional space and seeks to recover the identity of the place, recovering its referential qualities, traditions, landscapes and memory, updating its uses and generating symbolic places that facilitate the identification of the inhabitants with their context.

Description of project by AZAB

Traditions in a global world

Globalization also imposes on urbanism a loss of contextual and social values ​​that are transferred to its plans and buildings.

In this way, spaces emerge from their referential qualities, traditions, landscapes or memory to adopt a global aesthetic dominated by technology and image. Given this situation, it turns out that architecture recovers traditional spaces by updating their uses and generating symbolic places that facilitate the identification of the inhabitants with their context.

The new intervention in Mallabia pursues an update of its central public space, understanding the importance of it as the backbone of the municipality's social life.

Mallabia presents an implantation in the territory, typical of a Basque rural area, with a small settlement around the Church, the Town Hall and the square and the rest of the municipality within a large geographically rugged territory, where the inhabitants are concentrated on small clusters of hamlets.

Understanding this particular physiognomy of the municipality, the project does not seek the creation of a new space, but to recover the special significance of its emblematic space. For this, it is proposed the introduction of a series of devices that update the square, expanding its use possibilities so that it becomes a multi-generational space.

Thus, the object of the project focuses on the construction of a covered space, responds to the demand raised by the public, which refers to the climatology of the sea.

The project is proposed for this, the covering of the external auditorium of the Plaza Elizalde, and its conversion and adaptation to become a multigenerational leisure area. This reform aims to convert the auditorium into an area with leisure alternatives for all ages, for what the versatility of uses and the ability to host several related activities or different key answers for its purpose.

The new distribution of uses of the leisure area would be ordered by zones, with differentbut connected spaces, which multiply the possibilities of the old auditorium generating a wide variety of uses

In this way, the upper zone is intended for health and sports with priority to gymnastics for the elderly. The bleachers have a double function: on the one hand, to improve their comfort to become a rest and control area for the infants or on the seat for the public of possible shows.

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Architects
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AZAB. Ane Arce, Iñigo Berasategui.

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Client
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Mallabiako Udala

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Contractor
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Timber structure Madergia

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Dates
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2017-2018.

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Location
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Mallabia - Bizkaia, Spain.

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Photography
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Azab is established in 2018 by Cristina Acha, Miguel Zaballa, Ane Arce and Iñigo Berasategui. Architects from different generations, they lace their shared interests on cultural and social concerns. Common to their diverse projects is the combination of efficiency and imagination to emerge new synergies and relations that remain hidden in each specific context. Their projects have been widely published in magazines, blogs and specialized architectural media.

Azab understands architecture as an aesthetic transforming practice. In order to achieve this, Azab produces images, spaces, objects, texts, and buildings that explore the margins between the political, social, and ludic spheres.


 

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BeAr is an architecture office based in Bilbao that explores the possibilities of architecture as a discursive practice. Directed by Ane Arce and Iñigo Berasategui, BEAR resumes its activity in 2021 after operating since 2018 as AZAB. His works have received important recognitions and publications in specialized national and international media. It is worth noting the Peña Ganchegui 2019 Award for the best Young Basque Architects, the Egurtek 2020 Award or various recognitions in Arquia Próxima and BEAU.
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Published on: January 22, 2019
Cite: "Creating public space. Herriko Plaza by AZAB" METALOCUS. Accessed
<http://www.metalocus.es/en/news/creating-public-space-herriko-plaza-azab> ISSN 1139-6415
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