The new biennial event Architekturwoche Basel (AWB) will debut this May as a platform for discussing architecture and urban development through the lens of sustainable construction and the circular economy. The inaugural edition also marks the launch of the first Basel Pavilion, a temporary structure meant to showcase new possibilities for environmentally-friendly building practices. The winning design, “Loggia Basileana”, created by architecture practice isla, is made of reused building components and features a series of modules that form a continuous pedestrian passageway along the train tracks on the Dreispitz site.
Under the theme “Reale Räume” (Real Spaces), AWB will examine local urban transformation processes and how “digitalization, migration, climate change and the pandemic” changed public spaces. Featuring lectures, guided tours, workshops, exhibitions, films, concerts and performances, the programme is aimed at a broad audience, with the scope of promoting a dialogue between experts and the protagonists of architecture.
Mallorca-based architecture practice Isla, co-founded by Marta Colón de Carvajal and Juan Palencia, won a two-stage international competition for the first Basel Pavilion. The design and building processes had to be based on an online catalogue of available reused building components from Basel and the surrounding region. The architects proposed a series of modules made of different reusable components grouped under a pitched roof. “The linear public space of the pavilion has a direct relationship with the imaginary of the city of Basel on the east bank of the Rhine, where all the inhabitants and social strata of the city intermingle during the spring and summer months”, explain the architects.
The pavilion is the initiative of the Architektur Basel collective and planning office Zirkular, which specializes in the circular economy and reuse within the construction sector, was responsible for creating the component catalogue featuring materials from regional deconstruction sites. The pavilion will be made available to the public on May 10 as the venue for Architekturwoche Basel.
