Photographer: Josema Cutillas | ArchDaily

The Long Table as a Spatial Protocol: Designing Conditions for Gathering and Pause

Diogo Borges Ferreira — Sat, 31 Jan 2026 07:30:00 +0000

A long table can sit almost anywhere and still do the same work. It can stretch beneath a market canopy, run along a school dining hall, or occupy the center of a shared living room, and it immediately changes the room's temperature.

Beyond Universal Models: The Turn Toward Situated Architecture

Daniela Andino — Mon, 08 Dec 2025 04:00:00 +0000

Specificity has re-emerged as a central language in architectural discourse. In an increasingly globalized field, where projects often follow familiar models regardless of context, architects are now turning toward approaches rooted in the particularities of each site. This renewed attention to context reflects broader social, climatic, and political pressures: cities are facing extreme heat, ecological challenges, shifting demographics, and new forms of collective life that demand responses grounded in their immediate conditions.

Beyond Private Dining: Exploring the Communal Table as Public Space Infrastructure

Susanna Moreira — Fri, 10 Oct 2025 07:30:00 +0000

The habit of sitting at the table and sharing a specific moment with other people has been present for centuries in the most diverse cultures. The Greek Symposium, Roman Convivium, Medieval Feasts and Banquets, and Parisian Salons are just a few examples of how this custom was historically built and has been relevant in social and political negotiations, intellectual discussions, and philosophical debates.

The City as a Laboratory of Processes: A Decade of Urban Experimentation with Concéntrico

Jonathan Yeung — Mon, 08 Sep 2025 07:30:00 +0000

As cities continue to develop, we are seeing ever more well-planned, thoroughly executed, and tightly regulated approaches to shaping urban centres and their surrounding spaces—for better and for worse. As codes, restrictions, and guidelines improve and tighten, urban environments become safer, more balanced, and less prone to surprise. Yet the flip side is that highly managed districts can drift toward over-order and sanitisation, shedding the messy, accretive character that once produced alleyways, residual spaces, and unexpected sequences of movement—conditions often born from ongoing community improvisation in the grey zones of regulation.

International Youth Day: Three Educational Initiatives for Community-Led Urban Change

Antonia Piñeiro — Tue, 12 Aug 2025 05:30:00 +0000

August 12, designated by the United Nations as International Youth Day since 1998, was conceived as an occasion to bring youth issues to the forefront of the international agenda and to celebrate the contributions of young people to today's global society. Each year, the observance focuses on a specific theme. In 2025, it is "Local Youth Actions for the SDGs and Beyond," emphasizing the role of youth in transforming global ambitions into community-driven realities. The aim is to highlight how young people help implement the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) within local contexts and bridge the gap between policy and practice. In this spirit, we present three educational programs, in Romania, the United Kingdom, and the United States, that empower youth to deepen their understanding of the built environment and envision a more sustainable, people-friendly urban future.

Concéntrico 2025: The Politics of Urban Presence

Diogo Borges Ferreira — Thu, 26 Jun 2025 07:30:00 +0000

Every June, the Spanish city of Logroño transforms into a space of architectural dialogue, opening its streets, plazas, riverbanks, and traffic islands to temporary structures that redefine how cities are inhabited. For ten editions, Concéntrico has worked not as a specialized fair or an architecture biennale, but as a portable museum — a curatorial gesture that brings a dispersed collection of contemporary architecture into public space. Set in a city suspended between arid plains and distant mountains, far from the circuits of capital cities and cultural institutions, Concéntrico presents itself as a temporary promise. It's a reminder that even cities that are often overlooked can host architecture that is current, diverse, and speculative. In this sense, the festival is less about celebration and more about activation.

Pavilions in Urban Spaces: On the Experimentation, Recycling, and Reuse of Materials

Agustina Iñiguez — Thu, 15 May 2025 04:00:00 +0000

How do pavilions emerge in architecture? What role do they play in urban spaces? Beyond the multiple interpretations that exist around the world, the pavilion, as an architectural principle and typology, tends toward extroversion, often associated with a centrifugal nature and visual openness toward the horizon, which is linked to its origins as a tent offering shelter from the elements. Pavilions are usually identified as isolated and independent structures that can promote lateral openings in the urban space, panoramic or introspective views, technological reflections, and material experiments that are recognizable from the outside or once inside.

Unveiling the 15 Most Significant Architectural Events of 2025

Diogo Borges Ferreira — Fri, 17 Jan 2025 05:00:00 +0000

2025 promises to be a landmark in architecture, heralding a vibrant renaissance of creativity and exploration. As societies confront challenges such as climate change, rapid urbanization, and technological evolution, architecture is both a mirror to these dynamics and a compass pointing toward a sustainable and inclusive future. This year's architectural calendar offers abundant opportunities to celebrate the discipline's transformative power — from boundary-pushing festivals to thought-provoking exhibitions that explore pressing cultural and environmental narratives.

Concéntrico 10 Demonstrates How to Create Playful Engagement and Welcome Diverse Perspectives

Maria-Cristina Florian — Thu, 09 May 2024 07:30:00 +0000

Architecture and Design Festival Concéntrico celebrates its 10th anniversary from 25 April to 1 May 2024 with an edition that aims to reflect on the impact of the annual festival upon the city of Logroño, Spain, as well as to consider how the city continues to evolve. Through installations, exhibitions, lectures, performances, workshops, and activities, Concéntrico proposes a reflection of the urban environment, welcoming architects and designers to intervene and challenge it while opening conversations about pressing matters.

Off-Season Pavilion / KOSMOS Architects

Paula Pintos — Mon, 06 May 2024 07:00:00 +0000

As an alternative to the resource-excessive and short-term architecture of temporary festivals, the Off-Season Pavilion by KOSMOS proposes to search for the locally available resources of Logroño and give them a new temporary life outside of their productive cycle.

Concéntrico 10 Opens with 20 Urban Installations to Explore in the Spanish City of Logroño

Maria-Cristina Florian — Mon, 29 Apr 2024 06:30:00 +0000

From April 25 to May 1, 2024, Logroño hosts the tenth edition of Concéntrico, a celebration of urban innovation and transformation. This year, the festival explores the future of cities, incorporating new formats, engaging diverse audiences, and tackling urban challenges through the lens of time as a catalyst for change in design. Featuring 20 interventions and activities involving over 100 professionals from 17 countries, the program encompasses processes such as renaturalizing public spaces, reimagining urban structures, and integrating recycled materials from previous editions.

A Table Elevated in the Landscape / J-AF Architecture + González Serrano Studio+

Pilar Caballero — Wed, 14 Feb 2024 04:00:00 +0000

A red carpet that transitions from the landscape to a found domestic space, behind the curtain appears an elevated table, where visitors gather to share an experience through the senses and create ties with the context. Gaps in the façade, reflect the movement of the interior, but without competing with the importance of the landscape, these views are framed with a subtle red ribbon, which links the ever-present context with the interior activity. Smells permeate the interior of the space, delicate notes that refer to the quality of the product and past family experiences around a table.

Silk Pavilion / Paloma Cañizares Office

Andreas Luco — Mon, 18 Sep 2023 03:00:00 +0000

The silk pavilion is the first project resulting from the research work on fabric structures carried out by the Paloma Cañizares studio to explore the structural possibilities of rigidized textiles. After years of research, a life-size pavilion with rigidized silk panels was presented at the ninth edition of Concéntrico, the International Festival of Architecture and Design in Logroño. Subsequently, the pavilion was installed in the gardens of Nuevos Ministerios in Madrid at the request of the Ministry of Urban Agenda.

Temporary, but with Long-Lasting Effects: 6 Ways in Which Architecture Festivals Can Revitalize a City

Maria-Cristina Florian — Sun, 15 Jan 2023 07:30:00 +0000

Biennales, exhibitions, and architecture focused festivals provide a platform for opening debates, conducting research, and driving innovation, but they can also contribute to the incremental changes that shape the image and the character of a city. Through temporary installations and experiments, this type of events have the opportunity to open lines on inquiry into the quality of urban spaces, inviting visitors and residents to slow down, break away from their daily routine and interrogate their local environments. The effects might not be immediate, but by cumulating these impressions and moments of contemplation, architecture and design festivals can have a long-lasting impact on the cities that welcome them.

Community and Identity: Central Topics in Ephemeral Architecture in 2022

Paula Cano — Wed, 21 Dec 2022 08:30:00 +0000

Staged stories on community and identity, ephemeral architecture showed that in 2022 it doesn't have to be permanent to be powerful. A direct and popped-up public installation can shift from preparation to action, reclaiming and defining what makes a community unique. Highlighting installations to acknowledge linguistic diversity in NYC, a giant table to celebrate culinary in Barcelona, and a large-scale net in Dubai to represent the local culture, among others, these initiatives seek to understand ways in which local and regional expressions can help cities to be more equal and diverse.

12 Architecture Events to Pay Attention to in 2023

Nicolás Valencia — Tue, 06 Dec 2022 08:30:00 +0000

As expressed by 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale curator and architect Leslie Lokko, "after two of the most difficult and divisive years in living memory, architects have a unique opportunity to show the world what we do best: put forward ambitious and creative ideas that help us imagine a more equitable and optimistic future in common."

Hiber Space Installation / Rintala Eggertsson Architects

Paula Pintos — Sat, 22 Oct 2022 09:00:00 +0000

Rintala Eggertsson Architects designed and built ‘Hiber Space’ installation into the lush of a popular urban park in Logroño, Spain. Exhibited as part of the Concéntrico festival, the structure takes shape as a wooden pavilion made of recycled plywood that almost disappears into its green setting.

2022 Architectural Events: September's Packed List of 29 International Happenings

Christele Harrouk — Mon, 12 Sep 2022 08:00:00 +0000

After two years of disrupted cycles of architecture events, due to the pandemic, 2022 has been witnessing a resurgence: biennials, triennials, design weeks, and festivals are back in the picture, with bigger interrogations and larger thematic approaches, aligned with the challenges of the world.