8/10/2019 HolcimAwards11 EUR NextGen2nd

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Comment of the Holcim Awards jury Europe

Project group

Client

Project background

Estimated start ofconstruction

Project data

Further author(s)

Name

University

Study direction

Supervisor

City, country

Main author

Next Generation 2ndprize Europe

Materials reuse and regional transformation scheme, Gijn/Xixn, Spain

NextGeneration

2nd2

011Europe

Building and civil engineering works

Gijn City Council

Research project

Not applicable

Elisa de los Reyes Garca, Bachelors (Final Year)

Escuela Tcnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid

Architecture

Izaskun Chinchilla

Cangas del Narcea, Spain

Not applicable

Within the impressively detailed presentation, the holistic approach for a design and program that deals with social and en-vironmental issues of de-industrialized sites was evaluated by the jury to be very convincing. It proposes a complex conceptfor the recycling of construction materials, reuse of existing building structures, reorganization of urban areas, and a bio-diverseregeneration of the urban landscape.

Innovation and transferability Progress

Although the project is designed as an integral solution,each of the novelties proposed represents a reproduciblesystem. Regarding urban planning, we propose regulationsallowing the integration of virgin natural areas into urbanspace and the transformation of former constructions intourban self-sufcient infrastructures and unprecedentedspaces (dry docks converted into water-treatment plants,natural swimming-pools) A spreadable socioeconomic sys-tem underlies the way programs are inserted and formu-lated: production and sale places getting closer, creation of

productive communities. However, the main point is howthe project steps up to the evolution of building design re-lated to the reuse of constructive elements and materialsand the innovation in minimum energy systems.

Ethical standards and social equity People

Dwellings are arranged in communities in order to offerseveral ways of spatial sharing and facilities. Varied dwell-ing typologies make possible that different economic levelscan mix and live together. Firstly, the multigenerationalcommunity is created in order to allow users to combinefamiliar and working life. Apart from considering specialpublic places for children and elderly people, the dwellings(called kitchen sharing) admit different temporal combina-tions of rooms so as to adapt to varied family organizations.Secondly, the artisan community is conceived to provideworkshops for manual workers at a low price and withinurban areas. Besides, the community comprises coopera-tive rooms, where users would customize their own houses.The cooperative model permits architect and user to col-laborate in the design from the beginning. Finally, in theWorking at home community, liberal workers can afford

their own working space due to the special design of thedwellings.

Environmental quality and resource efciency Planet

The proposal sets concrete goals to be achieved. Water zero:rainwater harvesting and treatment inside the building,supported by a water reservoir and treatment-pools at urbanscale; energy zero: renewable urban energies and hygrother-mal sensitivity in building design; material energy tends tozero: 70% of materials are reused, the rest are recycled orwood. Besides, urban planning proposes land naturalizationand its efcient use; the whole building optimizes materialsand resources.

Economic performance and compatibility Prosperity

The project proposes an alternative socioeconomic modelin a region affected by industrial dismantling. High unem-ployment is addressed by new working possibilities (tele-working, innovative production industries). Besides, the de-velopment of a construction industry based in reusingobjects and materials would imply a real productive con-version. Present decadent waste stores would be improved,specialized workshops would be created, a new designing

industry would ourish.Contextual and aesthetic impact Prociency

The project proposes, by reusing constructive elements, arelatively new and attractive aesthetic. However, most ofthese elements will be taken from the region itself (notmore than 45km away), so it will incorporate the identity ofthe site and will make it contemporary at the same time.Moreover, the city will get back one of its prides: it will re-live its industrial patrimony by linking to it its exuberantnature, for which Asturias is well known.

The project can be explained attending to different architec-tural tools and concepts that try to construct a sustainablesociety, based on a minimum human impact and energywaste and maximum welfare conditions to citizens.

> RE-converting: The proposal set in one of the many aban-doned industrial sites of the central area of Asturias (Spain)which has been mired for years in a process of de-industri-alization. The project takes the opportunity of this criticalrestructuring situation of the actual production system topropose an integral, sustainable transformation. The proposalresearches into the concept of conversion to improve and

minimize the energy wasted in the way we build, produce,consume, work, meet and live.

> RE-using: Due to the dismantling process occurring withinthe area, a large number of industrial infrastructures andconstructions are left unused and a huge amount of materialsare discarded. The project focuses on building waste andother industrial surpluses to design a new constructioncatalogue of minimum energy systems. These solutions areapplied in order to transform former industrial warehousesand infrastructures.

> RE-qualifying: urban planning is reformulated to improvethe qualities of the territory, regarding its natural conditionsand establishing a complex urban tissue where human andnature harmoniously coexist. Efcient infrastructures relatedto mobility, water, energy and waste are also developed.

> RE-generating: impressive landscapes are generated by theintegration of native ora and fauna and the transformationof existing industrial infrastructures into unprecedentedurban programs.

> RE-programming. An alternative, socioeconomic model is

proposed through the relocation of production and sale places(a market where vegetables are grown-in-place, a commercialcenter for reused objects and materials) and the exibilityof public places.

> RE-inhabiting: Three types of communities are proposed,attending different working and living conditions. In themultigenerational community, spaces are designed to allowusers to combine familiar and working life: housing units,working rooms, and children and elderly people spaces arerelated. In the artisan community, dwellings link to work-shop spaces that are connected to retail spaces. In workingat home community, houses include working spaces insidethem and other facilities are shared. In every community,inhabitants share cultivation spaces.

> RE-designing. Specic construction details are designed bycombining the different elements of our particular cataloguein relation to spatial and building needs.

> RE-supplying: Minimum energy consume, hygrothermalcomfort and water self-sufciency are achieved by the useof specic devices: rainwater reservation and puricationsystem, water-treatment and ventilation courtyards, heat

accumulating water walls.

> RE-assembling: The reuse of structural elements lead to newdesigning possibilities, whose behaviors and necessary imple-mentations are analyzed here.

Project description by author Relevance to target issues by author

RE-inhabiting:main sections, introduction to different communities.

RE-generating:landscaping.

RE-inhabiting:communities (1).

RE-designing:construction.

RE-qualifying:urban planning.

RE-programing:main plans.

RE-inhabiting:communities (2).

RE-supplying: water/air. RE-assembling: structure.

RE-using strategy:catalog of construction systems made of reused materials.

Regional Holcim Awards competition 2011