PLAZA DE SAN MIGUEL

Rehabilitate public space from the vertical plane

Awards and Honours 1st Prize Architecture Competition, 2014. Winner of American Architecture Prize best Urban Design, 2017. Finalist WAN Award Color in Architecture, 2016. Winner of International Loop Design Award for Urban Design, 2020.
Estatus: Built.
Project Year: 2014-2015.
Location: Talavera de la Reina, Spain.
Area: 2.100 m2
Design: OOIIO Architecture
Team:
–Competition: Joaquín Millán Villamuelas, Jesús Reyes García, Gloria Moya Paniagua.
–Execution Project:Joaquín Millán Villamuelas, Jesús Reyes García.
–Construction: Joaquín Millán Villamuelas, Jesús Reyes García.
Client: Council of Talavera de la Reina
Builder: Arioliva s.l.

OOIIO wins the First Prize with its proposal for the Rehabilitation of the Plaza de San Miguel de Talavera de la Reina.

It is an urban intervention proposal whose main objective is to revitalize degraded public space. We create a simple and open space for all the neighbors, called to become a new symbol for the city, thanks to the contemporary and fresh use of a traditional and artisan material such as the famous Talavera pottery, a symbol deeply rooted in the local culture , important and that makes its inhabitants proud.

This proposal is born from a rigorous analysis of the needs of the public space of Talavera, a study of the circulations, of the sun, of the topography and of the pre-existing uses… Starting from the fact that before our intervention, the square was a residual urban space , nothing accessible for elderly or people with reduced mobility and used as informal parking.

With simple interventions we can turn this degraded space into one of the most attractive squares in the city.

Let’s reactivate the public space!

Although the objective is to rehabilitate the horizontal plane of the square, we prefer to concentrate the bulk of the intervention in the vertical plane, since the presence of the large mediating walls of the tall buildings that turn their backs on the square we understand that It is one of the big problems that make the user understand this point of the city as “a back”, a secondary place, uninteresting and not at all attractive.

We leave the horizontal plane as accessible and comfortable for pedestrians as possible, we limit and concentrate traffic on a defined lane and protect the open space for pedestrians by means of running benches,

designed and located specifically to be able to contemplate the great Talaverana ceramic mural that It will totally change the appearance of the square forever, becoming one of the most envied spaces in the city.

The intervention in the vertical plane will contribute to the rehabilitation and enhancement of the tower of the old wall, which is now lost between buildings that compete with it in height, to finally stand out and become together with the ceramic mural in a monument worth contemplating.