Dressing up the square
Olot
- Architects
- unparelld'arquitectes
- Location
- Plaça de Sant Miquel , 17800 Olot
- Year
- 2015
- Client
- Ajuntament d'Olot
- Team
- Jordi Moret, Jordi Collell, Ramon Heras
- Builder
- Soy & Soy Pintors
Domesticating the community space
The comfort and feeling of public spaces determine how we as citizens use them and make them ours. Showing off its new attire, Olot's Sant Miquel Square takes on a domestic hue, leading people to view it as a community space for the neighbourhood. At a minimal cost, the foundations were laid to make it the centre of social life once again, an inclusive area where all the neighbours meet up to chat and socialise and can feel at home.
By applying layers of paint selectively, the work clearly comprehends and then enhances the spatial quality, geometry and construction systems of the square’s architecture. Crowning touches, patterns and carpets imbue the concrete-block walls with lightness, luminosity and colour, following their modulation and reinforcing the textile feeling of the medium.
The geometric patterns are evocative of domesticity, as well as the events that identify the neighbourhood, like the paper-costume parade, the musician's troupe dance and outside concerts under the marquee. This action strengthens the uniqueness of every space but – most importantly – creates a backdrop that can easily host and be home to a wide range of activities and users, including games.
The project defines and develops one of the actions set out in the Comprehensive Plan for Urban Restoration, the outcome of the participative process led by Paisaje Transversal. Just like salt enhances the taste of a stew, the perfect amount of paint strengthens the identity and integrating character of the square and – by extension – of the entire neighbourhood.
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