Location: Madrid, Spain Architect/Designer: ARKE Design Team: Elcin Ertugrul, Carlos Alegria, Katherine L. Moya, Joaquin E. Boldrini Year: 2014
Our submission to this international competition offered a composition of 4 contitutive components. Each element represents a poetic aspect related to Madrid's bustling square.
The plane , it's the canvas for our intervention, its hardscape is reconfigure to house the following three elements and express their relationships. The Sun, represented in an iconic way by a half sphere over a reflecting pool, it evokes the sunset relating the place to it's name and origins. This element is placed on the west side of the square to enfasize this identity. The Cube, related to the citizens interventions, it is placed in the center of the square to articulate diverse acts and has the possibility to open towards the east and west. The Bow, an intermediate scale is created along the curve edge of the square conformed by the repetition of a proposed volume which is a bleacher but can also house a little shop inside. Street light elements and other urban furniture follows the geometry of this parallel curve.
The sun element offers a narrow interior path encouraging visitors to walk through it by themselves, hence offering the oportunity for a pause in the middle of this active square, and it is proposed as a counterbalance to the populous character of the place.
