Square it!
Ruth Gow
Colectivo mediterráneo is based in Barcelona - the result of an ongoing exploration between two friends, that looks at new ways to think about public space and how we relate to it. Ana and Ruth came from Seville to Barcelona to work in urban planning, and decided to get involved first-hand in transforming the built environment. With installations such as square it (BCN Architecture Week), they aim to engage local communities and provoke critical thinking about the everyday spaces they use.
Square it! is a way to open our eyes and be critical. It’s a way to accept that not everything around us is right and not to look the other way. It’s to know that your environment characterizes you, influences you and binds you.
The current lack of physical and temporal space makes it inevitable to want to improve the urban environment, its quality and offers the best possible experience.
After confinement, we are more aware of how all spaces we live in affect us. But we live not only in our homes but also in our cities.
We are not used to being so critical in other places that are also central to our daily lives.
How many people have rethought their home after months of confinement? And how many have worried about the state of their street? Why not point out all these dissonant elements? Those that disconcerts us, that confuse us, that make you disconnect from what make you really makes sense and use.
Why not point out all those elements that shouldn’t be there? This is an opportunity to improve our spaces and make life much more easier and enjoyable for all the citizens!
Square it! is an act of urban interaction with the landscape where we invite you to highlight dissonant or in disrepair elements. The materialisation of this act will be an alteration of the urban landscape that consists of framing with red tape elements that are out of harmony in the city: that branch that is sticking out of the wall here –a tree should go here–, that loose water connection, that piece of furniture that you don't need anymore and you abandon in the middle of your street.
This architecture week does not belong to the architects, but to the citizens. Of those who inhabited the streets, the parks and strolls before curfew.
Who has not been able to enjoy this open air for a long time, and now that they can, they know that it must be improved.
It can be done better and we want to do it.
There is so much to do. Much to improve. For us, for them and for those to come.