The Málaga architects’ association (Colegio de Arquitectos de Málaga) is putting on the first exhibition of architectural projects, La Idea Dibujada — “The Drawn Idea” — together with the Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País. The Colegio is the body every architect in Spain has to belong to: roughly ARB and the RIBA rolled into one. The exhibition is one of the main events of the second Málaga Architecture Week.
It opens on Monday 4 October at 20:00 at the Sociedad Económica, Plaza de la Constitución 7, to coincide with World Architecture Day.
The show puts architects’ work on display through the creative moment: the drawing in which the idea first takes shape. That way of working has opened up new lines in the profession. One of them is recycling architecture — taking buildings that already exist and giving them a new use, or a new lease of life, instead of knocking them down.
Málaga architect Juan Goñi Uriarte and the Klicstudio team are taking part with a clear example of exactly that: Promálaga CoWorking. Málaga City Council commissioned it. It is a change of use: an existing building in the Parque Tecnológico de Andalucía, the city’s technology park, turned into a business incubator run on collaborative working lines.
Designed with an eye on its environmental impact, it is the first building of its kind in the province. It will provide 40 open-plan workstations, plus larger and more private offices for companies that ask for them. The point is to fit an existing building to the needs of a large number of workers. And it meets the brief of the incubator network run by Promálaga, the city council’s economic development arm: to create work in the city.
For Juan Goñi, the job shows that creativity and sustainability are now central to the way we build, and that neither has to come at the expense of beauty or good design.
Promálaga CoWorking and some 65 other works can be seen until 29 October, free of charge. Opening hours are 10:00 to 14:00 and 17:00 to 20:00, in the rooms set aside for the exhibition at the Sociedad Económica de Amigos del País. A good hour of Málaga culture, if you happen to be in town this month.
