Private society Renazca has announced the winner of the controversial contest to transform Madrid’s AZCA district. A team set up by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Gustafson Porter + Bowman and b720 Fermín Vázquez Arquitectos make up the winners that will transform AZCA.

The team was chosen after a two-stage competition as part of a larger initiative to reactivate public space with the support of the private sector.
 
“The process followed by RENAZCA has clearly illustrated that when the private sector, city administration, and academia come together, each in its own way, for place-making and urban transformation, the result is a huge win for Madrid.”
Martha Thorne, Dean of IE School of Architecture and Design.
The contest raised the participation of architecture offices from around the world with the requirement of having at least one Spanish partner (a requirement that for many Spanish architects was embarrassing). In a first phase, 31 teams were preselected, of which 5 teams went on to a second phase as finalists: OMA, MVRDV, West 8, Heatherwick Studio and Diller Scofidio + Renfro.

With a proposal in many respects similar to the 2006 unsuccessful contest, the main idea of the project unfolds a landscaped area (baptized by the winners as a "great green meadow" or "urban carpet") in the center of the Azca superblock, trying to generate a kinder vision of tough urbanization processes such as Plaza del Callao and under which part of the infrastructures and program of uses are hidden.

This space will have a large central garden, with a large technological umbrella in the center, and fifteen microparks between the buildings, including native plant species, generating more accessible surfaces. "This project will turn the Azca area into a more connected, open and accessible space under the umbrella of sustainability, creating an urban ecosystem of great biodiversity", according to the statement provided by Renazca.

The competition has been managed by Martha Thorne and Edgar González, dean and professor at the IE School of Architecture and Design, and has had the advice of the architect Odile Decq and the pe of architecture and deputy director of La Vanguardia, Llàtzer Moix.
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Architects
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Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Gustafson Porter + Bowman and B720 Fermín Vázquez Arquitectos
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Collaborators
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Landscaping.- Citerea S.L.
Structures.- Valladares
Sustainability.- Societat Organica
Quantity Surveyor.- Dinmas
MEP.- Hoare LEA, FSL
Lighting.- Artec3
Space Modeling.- Space Syntax
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Diller Scofidio + Renfro Studio. Founded in 1981, Diller Scofidio + Renfro (DS+R) is a design studio whose practice spans the fields of architecture, urban design, installation art, multi-media performance, digital media, and print. With a focus on cultural and civic projects, DS+R’s work addresses the changing role of institutions and the future of cities. The studio is based in New York and is comprised of over 100 architects, designers, artists and researchers, led by four partners--Elizabeth Diller, Ricardo Scofidio, Charles Renfro and Benjamin Gilmartin.

DS+R completed two of the largest architecture and planning initiatives in New York City’s recent history: the adaptive reuse of an obsolete, industrial rail infrastructure into the High Line, a 1.5 mile-long public park, and the transformation of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts’ half-century-old campus. The studio is currently engaged in two more projects significant to New York, scheduled to open in 2019: The Shed, the first multi-arts center designed to commission, produce, and present all types of performing arts, visual arts, and popular culture, and the renovation and expansion of The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). Most recently, the studio was also selected to design: Adelaide Contemporary, a new gallery and public sculpture park in South Australia; the Centre for Music, which will be a permanent home for the London Symphony Orchestra; and a new collection and research centre for the V&A in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

Recent projects include the 35-acre Zaryadye Park adjacent to the Kremlin in Moscow; the Museum of Image & Sound on Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro; The Broad, a contemporary art museum in Los Angeles; the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive at the University of California, Berkeley; the Roy and Diana Vagelos Education Center at Columbia University in New York; and The Juilliard School in Tianjin, China.

DS+R’s independent work includes the Blur Building, a pavilion made of fog on Lake Neuchâtel for the Swiss Expo; Exit, an immersive data-driven installation about human migration at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris; Charles James: Beyond Fashion at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; Arbores Laetae, an animated micro-park for the Liverpool Biennial; Musings on a Glass Box at the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain in Paris; and Pierre Chareau: Modern Architecture and Design at the Jewish Museum in New York. A major retrospective of DS+R’s work was mounted at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. Most recently, the studio designed two site-specific installations at the 2018 Venice Biennale and the Costume Institute’s Heavenly Bodies: Fashion and the Catholic Imagination exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. DS+R also directed and produced The Mile-Long Opera: a biography of 7 o’clock, a free, choral performance featuring 1,000 singers atop the High Line, co-created with David Lang.

DS+R has authored several books: The High Line (Phaidon Press, 2015), Lincoln Center Inside Out: An Architectural Account (Damiani, 2013), Flesh: Architectural Probes (Princeton Architectural Press, 2011), Blur: The Making of Nothing (Harry N. Abrams, 2002), and Back to the Front: Tourisms of War (Princeton Architectural Press, 1996).

DS+R has been distinguished with the first MacArthur Foundation fellowship awarded in the field of architecture, Time Magazine's "100 Most Influential" list, the Smithsonian Institution's 2005 National Design Award, the Medal of Honor and the President's Award from AIA New York, and Wall Street Journal Magazine's 2017 Architecture Innovator of the Year Award. Ricardo Scofidio and Elizabeth Diller are fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and are International Fellows at the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA).
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Fermín Vázquez Huarte-Mendicoa (Madrid, 1961) architect since 1988. He studied at ETSAM (Madrid) and ETSAB (Barcelona). He leads b720 Fermín Vázquez Architects, which he set up with Ana Bassat in 1997, with offices in Barcelona, Madrid, Sao Paulo and Porto Alegre.

b720 is an international studio. It works globally within its offices in Brasil and Spain, in projects located in a dozen of differents countries.

The work of the studio, which has been showed in several events and museums as the Biennal of Venice, the Cité of París and MoMA of NY, has been awarded nationally and internationally with several prizes, among there are two RIBA Awards, a World Architecture Festival award, four awards ASPRIMA-SIMA, the Emporis Skyscraper Award and the European Public Urban Space award.

Among his best-known projects there are the Agbar Tower -with Jean Nouvel Architectures-, Lérida's airport, the Plaza del Torico in Teruel, La Mola Conference Centre in Barcelona, the City of Justice of Barcelona and the building for de America Cup in Valencia -both with David Chipperfield Architects- and the Gran Casino Costa Brava in Lloret de Mar. Currently working, among other projects, on the new Mercat dels Encants in Barcelona, the new international airport of Cuzco in Perú, the regeneration of the Waterfront of Cais Mauá of Porto Alegre, a new neighbourhood for 70.000 residents in Brasilia and in several high buildings in Sao Paulo.

He usually combines the proffesional practise with teaching. He has been teacher at ETSAB, at l'École d'Architecture et Paysage de Burdeos, at Universidad Europea de Madrid and he has given courses and conferences large universities and institutions all over the world.

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Gustafson Porter + Bowman are an award-winning landscape architecture practice based in London. We have a talented team of landscape architects, architects and urban designers led by 5 partners. Our wide-ranging specialisations allow us to engage with a multitude of projects from the urban masterplan scale to bespoke designs. Our design process is always based on a deep understanding of a site; its geographical context and the organisations and cultures that shape them.

We always visit our sites, research their location, history, hydrology, soils, plant communities, local context and site constraints. We will talk to clients, stakeholders and local people about their needs and ambitions. Only once we feel that we have understood these will we start developing a strong conceptual framework that lends meaning and distinctiveness to our landscape work. Throughout our 23-year history, we have sought to continuously push the boundaries of what constitutes the field of landscape design. We care deeply about our work, with strong personal commitments to achieving the best possible outcome for our clients, the environment and the local community. Our strong engagement with local communities and stakeholders, including artists and scientists, adds layers of richness to our work.

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Published on: February 3, 2021
Cite: "The controversial contest for the renovation of AZCA won by Diller Scofidio + Renfro and b720 Fermín Vázquez " METALOCUS. Accessed
<https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/controversial-contest-renovation-azca-won-diller-scofidio-renfro-and-b720-fermin-vazquez> ISSN 1139-6415
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