From the beginning, the project was conceived as the possibility of making the “underground” visible, a construction devised as a radical manifestation of Madrid’s outskirts youthful spirit in general, and of Rivas´ youth groups in particular.
Photography by © Miguel de Guzmán
The project aspires to become an explicit “teen” communication vehicle by appropriating their language and their voices as the ingredients of the project. In this way, the project’s team embraces all Rivas’s youth groups by means of an open participation process, in which the future users of the centre, combined with technicians and politicians, will contribute their decisions, their concerns, their fantasies and their aesthetics to create a contemporary “social monument”.
The end result of this process is a public structure with a punk spirit, intensely burdened with content and articulated around programmatic centres conceived as activity explosions, which are erected as meeting and exchange points of the emerging communities.
Photography by © Miguel de Guzmán
Project Info :
Architects : Mi5 Arquitectos
Project Year : 2009
Budget : 2.344.502 €
Contractor : Dragados
Project Area : 1834.0 sqm
Engineering : Juan Travesí (Estructuras)
Project Location : Rivas-Vaciamadrid, Madrid, Spain
Collaborators : Eider Holgado, Richar y Diego Barajas
Project Architects : Manuel Collado Arpia y Nacho Martín Asunción
Sophie Tremblay is a Montreal-based architectural editor and designer with a focus on sustainable urban development. A McGill University architecture graduate, she began her career in adaptive reuse, blending modern design with historical structures. As a Project Editor at Arch2O, she curates stories that connect traditional practice with forward-thinking design. Her writing highlights architecture's role in community engagement and social impact. Sophie has contributed to Canadian Architect and continues to collaborate with local studios on community-driven projects throughout Quebec, maintaining a hands-on approach that informs both her design sensibility and editorial perspective.