1
00:00:00,292 --> 00:00:02,259
My work focuses on the connection of

2
00:00:02,259 --> 00:00:05,783
both thinking about our community life

3
00:00:06,213 --> 00:00:07,286
being part of the environment.

4
00:00:07,286 --> 00:00:10,509
Where architecture grows from the natural

5
00:00:10,509 --> 00:00:13,981
local conditions and traditions.

6
00:00:13,981 --> 00:00:16,047
Today I brought two recent projects

7
00:00:16,047 --> 00:00:18,342
as an example of this.

8
00:00:18,342 --> 00:00:20,479
Both projects are in emerging countries,

9
00:00:20,479 --> 00:00:23,518
one in Ethiopia and another one in Tunisia.

10
00:00:23,518 --> 00:00:25,277
And also they have in common

11
00:00:25,277 --> 00:00:28,309
that the different analyses from different perspectives

12
00:00:28,309 --> 00:00:32,923
becomes an essential part of the final piece of architecture.

13
00:00:32,923 --> 00:00:35,681
The first example started with an invitation

14
00:00:35,681 --> 00:00:37,657
to design a multi-story shopping mall

15
00:00:37,657 --> 00:00:40,041
in Ethiopia's capital city Addis Ababa.

16
00:00:40,041 --> 00:00:42,257
And this is the type of building

17
00:00:42,257 --> 00:00:45,113
we were shown as an example to my team and myself

18
00:00:45,113 --> 00:00:47,170
of what we had to design.

19
00:00:47,170 --> 00:00:49,321
At first, the first thing I thought was,

20
00:00:49,321 --> 00:00:51,121
I want to run away.

21
00:00:51,121 --> 00:00:55,826
After seeing a few of these buildings,

22
00:00:55,826 --> 00:00:57,440
there are many in the city,

23
00:00:57,440 --> 00:01:00,882
we realized that they have three very big points.

24
00:01:00,882 --> 00:01:02,978
First, these buildings they are almost empty

25
00:01:02,978 --> 00:01:04,698
because they have very large shops

26
00:01:04,698 --> 00:01:07,730
where people cannot afford and buy things.

27
00:01:07,730 --> 00:01:10,570
Second, they need asofdajsk to perform

28
00:01:10,570 --> 00:01:12,738
because of the skin treatment with glass

29
00:01:12,738 --> 00:01:14,706
that creates heat in the inside,

30
00:01:14,706 --> 00:01:16,346
and then you need a lot of cooling.

31
00:01:16,346 --> 00:01:18,354
In a city where this shouldn't happen

32
00:01:18,354 --> 00:01:20,202
because they have really mild weather

33
00:01:20,202 --> 00:01:24,077
that ranges from 20 to 25 degrees the whole year.

34
00:01:24,077 --> 00:01:27,141
And third, is that there image has nothing to do

35
00:01:27,141 --> 00:01:28,974
with Africa and with Ethiopia.

36
00:01:28,974 --> 00:01:34,822
It is a bit in a place that has such a rich culture and traditions.

37
00:01:34,822 --> 00:01:37,718
Also during our first visit to Ethiopia,

38
00:01:37,718 --> 00:01:40,014
I was really captivated by the (unclear)

39
00:01:40,014 --> 00:01:42,151
that is this open raised structure

40
00:01:42,151 --> 00:01:43,998
where thousands of people they go and buy things

41
00:01:43,998 --> 00:01:46,286
every day from small vendors.

42
00:01:46,286 --> 00:01:48,574
And also it has this idea of the public space

43
00:01:48,574 --> 00:01:51,816
that uses the outdoors to create activity.

44
00:01:51,816 --> 00:01:55,182
So I thought, this is what I really want to design

45
00:01:55,182 --> 00:01:57,022
not a shopping mall.

46
00:01:57,022 --> 00:02:00,159
But the question was how we could do a multi-story

47
00:02:00,159 --> 00:02:03,014
contemporary building with these principles.

48
00:02:03,014 --> 00:02:04,150
The next challenge was

49
00:02:04,150 --> 00:02:05,575
when we looked at the site,

50
00:02:05,575 --> 00:02:08,254
that is in a really growing area of the city,

51
00:02:08,254 --> 00:02:10,598
where most of the buildings that you see in the image,

52
00:02:10,598 --> 00:02:12,230
they were not there.

53
00:02:12,230 --> 00:02:14,902
And it's also between two parallel streets

54
00:02:14,902 --> 00:02:17,286
that they don't have any connection (unclear) hundreds of meters.

55
00:02:17,286 --> 00:02:20,679
So the first thing we did was to create a connection

56
00:02:20,679 --> 00:02:22,415
between these two streets,

57
00:02:22,415 --> 00:02:24,598
putting all the entrances of the building.

58
00:02:24,598 --> 00:02:27,430
And this extends with an "anclanancium?"

59
00:02:27,430 --> 00:02:29,742
that creates an opener space in the building

60
00:02:29,742 --> 00:02:32,102
that self-protects itself with "it's own shape?"

61
00:02:32,102 --> 00:02:34,567
from the sand around?

62
00:02:34,567 --> 00:02:35,870
And around this void

63
00:02:35,870 --> 00:02:39,294
we placed this idea of the market with small shops,

64
00:02:39,294 --> 00:02:42,895
that change in each floor because of the shape of the void

65
00:02:42,895 --> 00:02:45,242
I also thought, how to close the building,

66
00:02:45,242 --> 00:02:47,214
and I really wanted to find a solution

67
00:02:47,214 --> 00:02:50,446
that would respond to the local climate conditions.

68
00:02:50,446 --> 00:02:52,662
And I started thinking about the textile

69
00:02:52,662 --> 00:02:54,543
like a shell made of concrete

70
00:02:54,543 --> 00:02:58,345
with perforations that would let the air in

71
00:02:58,345 --> 00:03:01,170
and also the light but in a filtered way.

72
00:03:01,170 --> 00:03:06,603
And then the inspiration came from these beautiful buttons of the Ethiopian women's dresses.

73
00:03:06,603 --> 00:03:08,778
That they have fractal geometry properties

74
00:03:08,778 --> 00:03:11,386
and this helped me to shape the whole facet.

75
00:03:11,386 --> 00:03:12,514
And we are building that

76
00:03:12,514 --> 00:03:15,058
with this small perfuwhat? pieces

77
00:03:15,058 --> 00:03:18,170
that are the windows that let the air and the light

78
00:03:18,170 --> 00:03:20,122
in a contra way inside the building.

79
00:03:20,122 --> 00:03:22,458
And this is complimented by these small color glasses

80
00:03:22,458 --> 00:03:25,002
that use the light from the inside of the building

81
00:03:25,002 --> 00:03:27,946
to light up the building at night.

82
00:03:27,946 --> 00:03:28,962
With these ideas it was not easy first to convince the developers

83
00:03:28,962 --> 00:03:33,041
because they were like,

84
00:03:33,041 --> 00:03:35,959
this is not a shopping mall, we didn't ask for that.

85
00:03:35,959 --> 00:03:41,721
Then we all realized that this idea of the market

86
00:03:41,721 --> 00:03:44,495
happened to be a lot more profitable then the idea of the shopping mall

87
00:03:44,495 --> 00:03:47,215
because basically they had more shops to sell.

88
00:03:47,215 --> 00:03:51,413
And also that the idea of the facade was much much cheaper,

89
00:03:51,413 --> 00:03:53,517
not only because of the material compared with the glass,

90
00:03:53,517 --> 00:03:56,252
but also because we didn't need to have air conditioning anymore.

91
00:03:56,252 --> 00:03:58,332
So we created some ??budget savings

92
00:03:58,332 --> 00:04:00,862
that we used to implement the project.

93
00:04:00,862 --> 00:04:02,302
And the first implementation was to think

94
00:04:02,302 --> 00:04:05,462
about how we could make the building sub-sufficient in terms of energy

95
00:04:05,462 --> 00:04:08,765
in a city that has ?lekasfdas? almost every day.

96
00:04:08,765 --> 00:04:13,046
So we created a huge asset by placing a foldable ??? on the roof.

97
00:04:13,046 --> 00:04:15,110
And then under those panels

98
00:04:15,110 --> 00:04:19,094
we thought about the roof like a new public space with gathering areas and bars

99
00:04:19,094 --> 00:04:21,798
that would create like this "something" oasis.

100
00:04:21,798 --> 00:04:24,637
And these portals/portions? on the roof,

101
00:04:24,637 --> 00:04:28,139
all together they collect the water to reuse for sanitary on the inside.

102
00:04:28,139 --> 00:04:33,363
Hopefully, by the beginning of next year because we are already on the 5th floor of the construction.

103
00:04:33,363 --> 00:04:36,059
The second example is a master plan

104
00:04:36,059 --> 00:04:39,635
of 2,000 apartments and ???? in the city of Tunis.

105
00:04:39,635 --> 00:04:41,555
And for doing such a big project, the biggest project I ever designed,

106
00:04:41,555 --> 00:04:45,973
I really needed to understand the city of Tunis

107
00:04:45,973 --> 00:04:49,819
but also its surroundings and the tradition and culture.

108
00:04:49,819 --> 00:04:53,235
During that analysis I paid special attention to the (M)edina

109
00:04:53,235 --> 00:04:57,035
that is this 1,000 year old structure that used to be closed by a wall

110
00:04:57,035 --> 00:05:01,537
opened by twelve different gates, connected by almost straight lines.

111
00:05:01,537 --> 00:05:06,011
When I went to the site the first design operation we did

112
00:05:06,011 --> 00:05:09,647
was to extend the existing streets creating 12 initial blocks

113
00:05:09,647 --> 00:05:14,781
similar in size and characteristics to the ones we have in Barcelona and other cities in Europe,

114
00:05:14,781 --> 00:05:16,388
with this couriers?

115
00:05:16,388 --> 00:05:18,932
On top of that we selected a "something" points

116
00:05:18,932 --> 00:05:22,148
reminding this idea of the gates and connecting them by straight lines

117
00:05:22,148 --> 00:05:24,428
and this modified this initial "pattern?".

118
00:05:24,428 --> 00:05:27,260
And the last operation was to think about the cell,

119
00:05:27,260 --> 00:05:30,012
the small cell of the project like the apartment

120
00:05:30,012 --> 00:05:31,852
as an essential part of the master plan

121
00:05:31,852 --> 00:05:35,228
and for that, I thought what would be the best orientation

122
00:05:35,228 --> 00:05:37,324
in the "madeisafadsjfl" for an apartment

123
00:05:37,324 --> 00:05:42,021
and its the North South because it creates a terminal difference between both sides of the house

124
00:05:42,021 --> 00:05:44,853
and then a natural ventilation.

125
00:05:44,853 --> 00:05:50,660
So, we overlap a pattern that makes that most of the patterns are perfectly oriented in that direction.

126
00:05:50,660 --> 00:05:52,692
And this the result

127
00:05:52,692 --> 00:05:55,836
that is almost like a combination of the European block and the Arab city.

128
00:05:55,836 --> 00:06:00,727
It has this block with ?? and then on the ground floor you have all this connection for the pedestrians.

129
00:06:00,727 --> 00:06:03,726
And also it responds to the local regulations of the established,

130
00:06:03,726 --> 00:06:07,482
the higher density on the upper levels and the lower density on the ground floor.

131
00:06:07,482 --> 00:06:10,968
And it also reinforces this idea of the gates.

132
00:06:10,968 --> 00:06:12,904
The volume has this "asdfsalfj shape"

133
00:06:12,904 --> 00:06:16,144
that shades itself with three different types of apartments

134
00:06:16,144 --> 00:06:19,696
and also lets the light go on the ground floor in a "bur-?" neighborhood

135
00:06:19,696 --> 00:06:22,520
And on the couriers there are the different facilities

136
00:06:22,520 --> 00:06:28,595
such as gym and a kindergarden and close by series of commercial to bring activity to the groundfloor.

137
00:06:28,595 --> 00:06:31,273
The roof, which is my favorite space of the project

138
00:06:31,273 --> 00:06:34,997
is almost like giving back to the community the space taken by the construction.

139
00:06:34,997 --> 00:06:37,281
And is where all the neighbors they can go up and socialize

140
00:06:37,281 --> 00:06:40,865
and do activities such as having like a "tucanmataran?" in the morning

141
00:06:40,865 --> 00:06:44,249
jumping from one building to another.

142
00:06:44,249 --> 00:06:46,561
These two examples

143
00:06:46,561 --> 00:06:49,945
they have a common approach into the design process.

144
00:06:49,945 --> 00:06:52,633
And also, they are in emerging countries where you can see

145
00:06:52,633 --> 00:06:54,825
the cities literally growing.

146
00:06:54,825 --> 00:06:59,411
In these cities, the impact of architecture in people's life of today and tomorrow

147
00:06:59,411 --> 00:07:04,552
changes the local communities and economies at the same speed as the buildings grow.

148
00:07:04,552 --> 00:07:07,222
For this reason, I see the more important

149
00:07:07,222 --> 00:07:12,019
to look at architecture finding simple but affordable solutions,

150
00:07:12,019 --> 00:07:16,206
that enhance the relationship between the community and the environment

151
00:07:16,206 --> 00:07:20,251
and that aim to connect nature and people.

152
00:07:20,251 --> 99:59:59,999
Thanks you very much.