video link: protean val

Is it possible to rethink society through architecture in the XXI century? A society where paradoxically free market ideals, free movement of capital and merchandise come together with new immigration laws, new borders, new walls, new boundaries for human beings. Could architecture be adaptable, fluid and light to respond to the nomadic lifestyle? To consider educational and employment migration? To disappear when it is no longer needed?

Barcelona hosts 7 000 000 tourists (many of which short stay professionals) and 200 000 students every year. Choosing networking over luxury, the young unsettled “urban nomad” population have a lifestyle that is not reflected in the amount of student residences/hostels, protected meeting spaces or flexible environments.

By building on poles, the project covers minimal ground space. Allowing the structure to be resized according to needs or desires, areas are added quickly. The floors make bridges where they meet, extending and connecting inhabitable areas. The reactive skin is attached in a triangulated modular system, and can be rearranged by the users. Being foldable, it adapts to the structural movements, and by inflating pockets of air or gas it insulates and provides transparency or translucency, according to desire. It also holds air valves for the regulation of air flow, thereby generating living conditions within the comfort zone.