Concéntrico 10, International Architecture and Design Festival of Logroño, proposes to reflect on the urban environment and the city through architecture and design proposals in different formats. The new edition will be held from 25 April to 1 May 2024.

The festival has opened the competitions for three interventions in the tenth edition.

The jury met at the headquarters of the Official College of Architects of La Rioja on 18 and 19 January 2024 to decide on the Concéntrico 09 competitions in Plaza Escuelas Trevijano, Viña Lanciano and Celebrating the city, and determined the winners, mentions and finalists.

Plaza Escuelas Trevijano

Once the projects submitted had been studied and the appropriate deliberations had taken place, they decided that the winning project would be the one named under the slogan:

Poplar Assembly by Francisco Javier García García — Spain

Project description:

Assembly (from English)

Definitions according to the RAE:
(i) Assembly: meeting of the members of a collectivity to discuss matters of common interest and, where appropriate, to take decisions.
(ii) Ensamblaje (action of assembling) To join, put together, fit together, especially pieces of wood.

Strategy

The Poplar Assembly pavilion is conceived on the basis of 4 objectives: (1) to serve the community, (2) to generate a useful space for the purposes of the festival, (3) to promote construction with local materials and industry and (4) to renaturalise the city.

Social dimension: community space

The pavilion defines an urban space that will serve as a point of reference and allow festival-related activities to take place. In this way, the void generated encourages the meeting, exchange and relationship of both the participants of the event and the citizens of Logroño.

The space: a vegetal perimeter

The space, based on the concept of perimeter, is configured on the basis of the arrangement of a row of small, very slender poplars, which, by means of their repetition along a sinuous route, generate a permeable wall of vegetation. As a result, an urban oasis is created which, although defined by the plant curtain, is not isolated from the outside.

The vegetal perimeter enjoys the great richness provided by the elements that make it up: the poplars. The repetition of the same elements, which are at the same time different from each other, allows the air to pass through, acts as a light filter and generates a sense of peace and tranquillity.

Mentions / Finalists — Plaza Escuelas Trevijano

Due to the quality of the works presented, this jury considers 2 mentions and 12 finalist projects to be noteworthy:

MENTIONS

el Alma de la plaza — Jose Luis Berrueta, María Lourdes Medina, Eva Fontalba — Switzerland, Colombia, Spain

Kunstkammer Community — SA-KO (Alexander Topilin, Kristián Vnučko) — Czech Republic

FINALISTS

Loop — Low estudio (Amaro Donoso, Sebastián de la Cerda, Gonzalo Muñoz, Felipe Soto) — Spain

Aesculus x carnea — Álvaro Llera García — España

Corro — Diego Alday, Sebastián Valois H., Esteban Salcedo — Chile

Dentro del centro — P+M+A (Pau Olmo Ciges, María Mateo Carmona, Alejandro Jaén del Pozo) — Spain

doppelganger — Ángel Palmerín Ruíz, Guillem Molas Rovira — Spain

Habitar el vacío — OAU – Office of Architecture and Urbanism (Andres Oyaga Loewy, Rodrigo Chain, Camila Agudelo) — Colombia

Latent Shapes — Riesgo & Carr (Dairon Riesgo, China Carr) — USA

Noventa centímetros — Eduardo Sancho Calzada — Spain

Paisaje en construcción — Elemental Lab (Cristina Ortega, Juan Ramirez) — Spain

Panorama — Colectivo Austral (Elias Parra, Ken Qiu, Cristóbal Riffo, Sebastián Simonetti) — Chile

Shore as River, River as Shore — Field Object Lab (Yang Fei), CO-MILIEU (Ruize Li, Qinrong Liu) — USA

9 Souvenirs— (RA!), Andrea Suardi, Ani Safaryan — Italy

Viña Lanciano

Once the projects submitted had been studied and the appropriate deliberations had taken place, they decided that the winning project would be the one named under the slogan:

Cuaderno de surcos by ji arquitectos + Blas Antón — Spain

Project description:

The idea of the project is to create a “Visual Landscape” on the natural lines drawn by the vineyards: furrows.

It is about reinterpreting the natural landscape from the innate intuition. How it has been modified and its relationship with the city. It is a concept: landscape on landscape. Having the opportunity to configure our natural environment. A new reading with extensible industrial artefacts that allow us to decide and customise the environment.

Mini-citizen participation

The choice of the intervention will be made through the participation of Logroño’s children. To this end, a few months before Concéntrico, a children’s competition will be launched in primary schools for them to draw: flowers, suns, clouds, lightning, rainbows, birds… From all of them, between 10 and 15 drawings will be selected and they will be the ones that will finally be made in wood and “fly over” the vineyards.

Second life

Once Concéntrico is finished, the wooden pieces used in the installation will be dismantled and reconverted into urban elements, swings and games distributed throughout Logroño’s playgrounds. In this way, the circle is closed, and those who were the creators of the drawings will now be the users.

Poem

En los surcos de este viñedo escribiría un poema
como si fueran líneas donde aliviar mis penas
no usaría palabras ni haría falta ortografía
sobre este cuaderno de surcos soles volarían
también habría nubes, de las que hacen tormenta
de las que traen lluvia, que me pone tan contenta con la lluvia
y el sol el arcoiris no tardaría y volaría algún pájaro piando de alegría
y poco a poco harían las flores presencia
con sol y lluvia, su florecer no tiene más ciencia
y todo junto formaría mi poema anhelado de colores
y formas todo sería impregnado

Mentions / Finalists — Viña Lanciano

Due to the quality of the works presented, this jury considers 2 mentions and 12 finalist projects to be noteworthy:

MENTIONS

A Civil Architecture — DRAWINGS (Daniel Garcia, William Smith) — USA

Jardin del viñedo — Jules Burguet, Julien Sarale, Benjamin Vitry — France

FINALISTAS

as Above, so Below — atelier VRAC (Zenaida Florea, Cristi Bădescu) — Romania

Ascend–dnecsA — Pouya Khadem — USA

El bosque de Olivia — Marta Vela, Pedro Egea — Spain

Flying Doric — Nuno Reis Pereira — Portugal

La cimbra en movimiento — Dos puntos (Artur Roig Pérez, Niccoló Santana Usai, Èric Peña Blanco, Emma Maev O’Connell) — Spain

La Manga — Mercedes Risso-Patron, Clementina Benedetto, Juana Hecker — Argentina

Mala hierba — Ángel Rubio Sánchez — Spain

Noria — +.atelier (Oscar Cruz García, Paula Moraga Santano) — Spain

Pausa y Proceso — El Sindicato Arquitectura — Ecuador

Retoñar — CO-MILIEU(Ruize Li, Qinrong Liu)+ FIELD OBJECT LAB (Yang Fei) — China

The Collector — Fabio Peixoto — Portugal

Un marco del paisaje — Ziyu Guo — China

Celebrating the city

Once the projects submitted had been studied and the appropriate deliberations had taken place, they decided that the winning project would be the one named under the slogan:

Palo de mayo by JBVA + Eugenio Nuzzo + Anatole Poirier + Alex Roux — France

Project description:

The Missing Tree

In the square of the Parc del Espolón, a tree has disappeared from the grid. What happened to it? Why hasn’t it been replanted?

Starting from an anecdotal observation, our project appropriates this void, this anomaly becomes our opportunity. A Palo de Mayo takes its place, it’s the point of convergence of all the existing urban situations nearby; like a synthesis of the ingredients that make up this urban fragment. The freshness of the fountain at the Monumento al general Espartero, the soundscape of the Concha, the shifting lights of the peripheral roads. The verticality and materiality of the Palo de Mayo is on the same scale as the city.

Our proposal is an invitation to party, gather and exchange. It’s a celebration of the city as we dream it, as we conceive it. It’s an architecture around which we all converge, no interior space or orientation, here the entire space of the city is an infinite pavilion.

SEQUENCE 01 – MIRROR
Entirely covered with mirrored film panels, the base of the Palo de Mayo becomes the projection of its surroundings: the uncontrolled dynamism of the city, the reflections altered by the effects of light and mist, the individuals submerged in the euphoria of the party and of the crowd.

Some faces are equipped with switches, allowing users to alter the Palo de Mayo and the image they perceive of it.

SEQUENCE 02 – SPRAY
The second vertical sequence of the Palo de Mayo features a water misting system that is active both during the day and in the evening, taking advantage of the tree canopy to enhance the freshening of the square while consuming a minimal amount of water.
A tank, supplied with water either recovered from the rain or sourced from the nearby Ebro river, is installed inside the structure. It provides regular misting while simultaneously stabilizing the structure of the Palo de Mayo.

SEQUENCE 03 – SOUNDSYSTEM
Two loudspeakers per side provide a uniform sound distribution across the square.
They are connected to a central system whose musical and radio programming will be produced in partnership with local cultural entities.
Cultural activities will use the system to support their events, and in addition to music, podcasts recorded as part of the festival may also be broadcast.
In this way, the Palo de Mayo becomes a relay and support for the various activities taking place elsewhere in the city and on the other festival sites.

SEQUENCE 04 – LIGHT
The 8 faces of the Palo de Mayo light sequence are equipped with luminous bulbs, whose light intensity gives rhythm to the life of the square, revealing to the surroundings the events that take place there, responding to the cycle of day and night.
With its luminous crown, it can be identified and located from any side of the square, inviting users to come closer, like a lighthouse shining continuously at 360° for the 7 days of the festival.