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Architects: Polysmiths
- Area: 150 m²
- Year: 2022
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Manufacturers: Euro Windows (glazing), Mike Wye (cork boards)


Concéntrico returned to Logroño for its 12th edition in June and transformed the city into a working site for architecture. Since its founding in 2015, the festival has built an identity on resisting a distant, controlled exhibition of design by constructing full-scale installations in the city's streets, plazas, and vacant lots, engaging residents and visitors as part of daily life. This year's program brought together more than twenty interventions by architects, designers, and researchers working across a wide range of geographies and methods, each contributing to a citywide experiment in reimagining public space.




Images of the benches at New York City's High Line Park spread around the world when the project opened in 2009. Emerging diagonally from the same material and modular pattern as the paving, they transition seamlessly from concrete to wood, evoking the railway tracks that once occupied the site. To withstand decades of exposure to the elements, the project required a wood species of exceptional durability, and ipe, harvested from the Brazilian Amazon, was selected. Its slow growth produces a dense, low-porosity hardwood that is naturally resistant to wear, moisture, and biological decay. The choice, however, sparked controversy at the time amid concerns over the certification of the timber's forest management. This broader view changes how we think about materials. Their origin still matters, but so does what happens after the building's life comes to an end.


