Architectural intervention

July 2018
INLAND (Campo Adentro) | Asturias, Spain

Collaborators:
Sébastien Tripod

Construction interns:
Naïm Benyahya 

With the support of:
Goethe-Institut Madrid

The artist collective INLAND invited us to support the transformation of a 17th century mountain village in northern Spain into an Agroecology Center that will host New Curriculum—a multidisciplinary educational program bridging art, farmers’ knowledge and agroecology in pursuit of sustainable rural futures. 

Presently undergoing the first phase of recuperation, the semi-inhabited village is to be fully restored in the coming years in order to welcome both a permanent set of residents (Inland group), and temporary ones (artists, students, scientists, researchers … ). The restoration process is to take place in parallel with the New Curriculum meetings, allowing for the development and direct application of the knowledge shared and created in these meetings to transpire through the activities on the site. The village will therefore not only be recuperated through the renovation of its physical structure, but also through the cultural and social production that arises from the activities related and surrounding the construction of it.

We set up to build the basics; beds, showers and toilets, a kitchen and a gathering area. Enough elements to house the first series of gatherings in the summer and fall of 2018. Three out of the eleven buildings that compose the village were invested on throughout our intervention. First, by the setup of an outdoor atelier under an horreo (granary) to support the rest of the building work. Then, by the restructuration of two horreos and a former barn into dormitories. The later being complemented by an open structure built as an attached extension; hosting an access to the second floor of the barn, a set of showers and sinks and underneath them a chicken coop. By the end of the building site, the atelier was transformed into a kitchen connected to an adjacent meeting and dining place, defining a central space for cohabitation.