PLAÇA PENEDÈS

MAMEN DOMINGO | ERNEST FERRÈ

Architects: Mamen Domingo, Ernest Ferré
Photos by: Jordi Surroca, Marc Méndez
Typology: Public Space (square)
Location: Cerdanyola del Vallès
Date: January 2015

The design transforms a gloomy area between blocks into a public space for neighbours to socialise, and meets the technical challenge of solving problems of drains and accessibility to doorways.
In everyday imagery, a ‘carpet’ can symbolise a meeting place, a place for coexistence, for a community to appropriate. The ‘carpets’ of the different cultures that live in this neighbourhood form a unique cultural mosaic, bringing a human element to the square. As a collective strategy, traditional, low-tech, low-cost materials are used, and the workers identify themselves with the work and feel that they are the protagonists of the precise craftsmanship that joins the artistic requirements with the complex geometry of the plans.
That which was non-existent suddenly emerges, and the most beautiful view is seen from the windows of the buildings. Thus, an uninteresting landscape becomes a landscape that the collective identifies as its own.