Navigating towards a climate island: activations of the Costanillas site from Suq Centeno
The Suq Centeno project consists of a series of actions of ‘protest’ and ‘proposal’ against the social, cultural and food degradation of the San Agustín neighbourhood in Córdoba. A souk (from the Arabic süq) is the name given in Spanish to the traditional markets of Arab countries. More than just a place for buying and selling, the Suq is the central meeting place for the active social participation of the community around food and crafts.
Inciding on ‘learning by doing’ methodologies, Suq proposes eco-social change through the following actions: the organisation of a farmers‘ and artisans’ market, the rethinking of the potential of abandoned plots as climatic-community islands, the construction of an oven as a milestone in a new way of communicating community culinary knowledge and the creation of a library for the neighbourhood.
Workshop for the design and construction of the Climate Classroom
From Zuloark we held a meeting dedicated to the collaborative design and construction of a Climate Classroom for the project. In this workshop, we designed and built a space dedicated to children, equipped with devices that activate biodiversity and serving both as a market stall and as an emerging climate classroom.
The result consists of four different prototypes:
Prototype 1 – Parliament of Bodies: In the abandoned plot of land in Costanillas, the neighbours had begun to cultivate a vegetable garden. But, in order to inhabit the space, it was necessary to share ideas and desires for the place beforehand. For this reason, it was decided to design and build a space for conversation and rest, a symbolic and at the same time functional element: a parliament.
Prototype 2 – Shade: Inhabiting the site for days on end allowed us to see how the passing of the hours gave rise to more sheltered corners and others that were sunnier and more exposed. Thus, it was decided to take advantage of the existing dividing walls to stretch steel cables across the site and fix elements of natural reed on them to provide shade for a good part of the day.
Prototype 3 – Watering cart: The lack of a water supply on the site conditions the choice of the species planted and the dynamics necessary for their care. The easiest way to irrigate the garden was to bring water directly from the fountain of ‘La Piedra escrita’ with buckets or jars, as in the past. It was therefore decided, in collaboration with the artist Alvaro Albaladejo, to build a cart in wood and iron to bring more water from the fountain.
Prototype 4 – Totem: Finally, a representative, identitary and multifunctional device is built, which can be used as a work table, storage, exhibition space and communication support; but above all, it must be an infrastructure that can be modified and adapted to the needs of its users; this is how the Totem was defined.
On Sunday 12th May the third edition of Suq Centeno was held in the Luciana Centeno neighbourhood centre. For this occasion the pieces built during the workshop were taken to the courtyard of the centre, to communicate and make visible the work done during the week in the site.