Concéntrico: Urban Innovation Laboratory documents ten years of one of Spain's most ambitious architecture and design festivals — 150 commissioned projects across Logroño that treat the city itself as a site of experimentation and civic dialogue.
About This Book
Since 2015, the Concéntrico festival in Logroño, Spain has operated as a live urban laboratory: commissioning architects, artists, and designers to respond to real urban conditions — questions of identity, heritage, ecology, play, and collective life. This volume gathers 86 of those projects into a single sustained argument about what architecture and design can do in the public realm. It is not a survey of built works but a meditation on process, context, and the evolving relationship between designers and the communities they work within. For practitioners and students invested in urban design, temporary installations, and participatory design practice, this is essential documentation of a model that has proved generative over a decade.
Key Features
- 320 pages of lavishly illustrated project documentation and concise critical texts
- Edited by Javier Peña Ibáñez and Nick Axel
- 86 projects by artists, architects, and designers from 20 countries
- Published by Park Books, 2015
What You'll Discover
- How a recurring festival format can function as genuine urban research, producing knowledge about cities through making rather than theory alone
- The range of themes Concéntrico has pursued — from temporariness and domesticity to ecology and collectivity — and how each inflects architectural practice differently
- A conversation between editors Javier Peña Ibáñez and Nick Axel tracing the festival's context, evolution, and the intellectual territory it has mapped over ten years
- A model for how design festivals can foster sustained dialogue between designers and citizens rather than functioning as spectacle
About the Author
Nick Axel is an editor and writer working at the intersection of architecture, urbanism, and cultural criticism. Javier Peña Ibáñez is co-director of the Concéntrico festival and has been instrumental in shaping its programme and critical identity since its founding.
Specifications
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 320
- Dimensions: 17 x 24 cm
- Language: English
- ISBN: 9783038604433
- Publisher: Park Books
- Publication Date: 2015
Perfect For: Architects and urban designers interested in public space and temporary installations; design festival curators and researchers; students exploring the intersection of community engagement and architectural practice.