It is a project with a scope on redefining the traditions and techniques of architecture, design, and consumption and, within which, the creative and constructive process becomes part of the identity of MO de Movimiento, by Lucas Muñoz Muñoz. Ventilation systems based on terracotta and water are the cooling hearts of a construction that deploys a complex, yet simple, water management system.
These red clay elements cool down Madrid’s dry and hot air through an adiabatic exchange of temperature – in an innovative combination of vernacular knowledge and low technology, created specifically for this location by Lucas and his team. There is respect for the life cycle of each material that composes those elements, and this has been the bottom line from where to create the project. Hence, all elements are conceived for a life cycle that includes maintenance and repair in their design, as well as takes decay and degradation as elements and variables into the design process.
What had been a theatre room (Teatro Espronceda) and a Spanish communications agency recording space (EFE), the ground floor of Espronceda 34 street in Madrid has been transformed into a 1000 m2 restoration space. All furniture elements are reassemblies of the wooden structures that were already there and the construction rubble produced during the refurbishment was re-encapsulated into thick tiles that conform to the seat and backrest of lines of continuous benches.
Fire retardant projected plaster is the rough finishing of its walls, norm-based PVC electricity register boxes and piping give shape to wall lights, acoustic recycled textile panels are visible on the ceiling and the old indoor walls from the recording plató became, after removing the roof, the walls of an open-air patio. Those were consolidated using a layer of chicken fence that contents the wall from crumbling and allows climbing plants to grab onto it and eventually fully cover those walls in the following years.
The result is a project that takes construction, architecture, and interior design as an opportunity for prototyping sustainable strategies for production, consumption, employment, and supply chains.