My work focuses on the connection of
both thinking about our community life
being part of the environment.
Where architecture grows from the natural
local conditions and traditions.
Today I brought two recent projects
as an example of this.
Both projects are in emerging countries,
one in Ethiopia and another one in Tunisia.
And also they have in common
that the different analyses from different perspectives
becomes an essential part of the final piece of architecture.
The first example started with an invitation
to design a multi-story shopping mall
in Ethiopia's capital city Addis Ababa.
And this is the type of building
we were shown as an example to my team and myself
of what we had to design.
At first, the first thing I thought was,
I want to run away.
After seeing a few of these buildings,
there are many in the city,
we realized that they have three very big points.
First, these buildings they are almost empty
because they have very large shops
where people cannot afford and buy things.
Second, they need asofdajsk to perform
because of the skin treatment with glass
that creates heat in the inside,
and then you need a lot of cooling.
In a city where this shouldn't happen
because they have really mild weather
that ranges from 20 to 25 degrees the whole year.
And third, is that there image has nothing to do
with Africa and with Ethiopia.
It is a bit in a place that has such a rich culture and traditions.
Also during our first visit to Ethiopia,
I was really captivated by the (unclear)
that is this open raised structure
where thousands of people they go and buy things
every day from small vendors.
And also it has this idea of the public space
that uses the outdoors to create activity.
So I thought, this is what I really want to design
not a shopping mall.
But the question was how we could do a multi-story
contemporary building with these principles.
The next challenge was
when we looked at the site,
that is in a really growing area of the city,
where most of the buildings that you see in the image,
they were not there.
And it's also between two parallel streets
that they don't have any connection (unclear) hundreds of meters.
So the first thing we did was to create a connection
between these two streets,
putting all the entrances of the building.
And this extends with an "anclanancium?"
that creates an opener space in the building
that self-protects itself with "it's own shape?"
from the sand around?
And around this void
we placed this idea of the market with small shops,
that change in each floor because of the shape of the void
I also thought, how to close the building,
and I really wanted to find a solution
that would respond to the local climate conditions.
And I started thinking about the textile
like a shell made of concrete
with perforations that would let the air in
and also the light but in a filtered way.
And then the inspiration came from these beautiful buttons of the Ethiopian women's dresses.
That they have fractal geometry properties
and this helped me to shape the whole facet.
And we are building that
with this small perfuwhat? pieces
that are the windows that let the air and the light
in a contra way inside the building.
And this is complimented by these small color glasses
that use the light from the inside of the building
to light up the building at night.
With these ideas it was not easy first to convince the developers
because they were like,
this is not a shopping mall, we didn't ask for that.
Then we all realized that this idea of the market
happened to be a lot more profitable then the idea of the shopping mall
because basically they had more shops to sell.
And also that the idea of the facade was much much cheaper,
not only because of the material compared with the glass,
but also because we didn't need to have air conditioning anymore.
So we created some ??budget savings
that we used to implement the project.
And the first implementation was to think
about how we could make the building sub-sufficient in terms of energy
in a city that has ?lekasfdas? almost every day.
So we created a huge asset by placing a foldable ??? on the roof.
And then under those panels
we thought about the roof like a new public space with gathering areas and bars
that would create like this "something" oasis.
And these portals/portions? on the roof,
all together they collect the water to reuse for sanitary on the inside.
Hopefully, by the beginning of next year because we are already on the 5th floor of the construction.
The second example is a master plan
of 2,000 apartments and ???? in the city of Tunis.
And for doing such a big project, the biggest project I ever designed,
I really needed to understand the city of Tunis
but also its surroundings and the tradition and culture.
During that analysis I paid special attention to the (M)edina
that is this 1,000 year old structure that used to be closed by a wall
opened by twelve different gates, connected by almost straight lines.
When I went to the site the first design operation we did
was to extend the existing streets creating 12 initial blocks
similar in size and characteristics to the ones we have in Barcelona and other cities in Europe,
with this couriers?
On top of that we selected a "something" points
reminding this idea of the gates and connecting them by straight lines
and this modified this initial "pattern?".
And the last operation was to think about the cell,
the small cell of the project like the apartment
as an essential part of the master plan
and for that, I thought what would be the best orientation
in the "madeisafadsjfl" for an apartment
and its the North South because it creates a terminal difference between both sides of the house
and then a natural ventilation.
So, we overlap a pattern that makes that most of the patterns are perfectly oriented in that direction.
And this the result
that is almost like a combination of the European block and the Arab city.
It has this block with ?? and then on the ground floor you have all this connection for the pedestrians.
And also it responds to the local regulations of the established,
the higher density on the upper levels and the lower density on the ground floor.
And it also reinforces this idea of the gates.
The volume has this "asdfsalfj shape"
that shades itself with three different types of apartments
and also lets the light go on the ground floor in a "bur-?" neighborhood
And on the couriers there are the different facilities
such as gym and a kindergarden and close by series of commercial to bring activity to the groundfloor.
The roof, which is my favorite space of the project
is almost like giving back to the community the space taken by the construction.
And is where all the neighbors they can go up and socialize
and do activities such as having like a "tucanmataran?" in the morning
jumping from one building to another.
These two examples
they have a common approach into the design process.
And also, they are in emerging countries where you can see
the cities literally growing.
In these cities, the impact of architecture in people's life of today and tomorrow
changes the local communities and economies at the same speed as the buildings grow.
For this reason, I see the more important
to look at architecture finding simple but affordable solutions,
that enhance the relationship between the community and the environment
and that aim to connect nature and people.
Thanks you very much.