Recetas Urbanas

A group of AAA's (artists, activists and architects) that look for loopholes in the bureaucratic system of city planning to reclaim parts of the city by those who it really belongs to. Their 'solutions' are mostly mobile and temporary, allowing for alterations in an ever changing environment.Their website shows all their projects under 4 categories: Strategies for Subversive Urban Occupation, Housing, Collaborative Architecture and Flirting with Art.



Execution House: Chicken House

"economical prototype of minimal housing units with the ability to consolidate and generate collective residential nuclei with easy set-up and evolving assembly. Linked to the alarm of an agency lacking an urgently needed new housing plan, the project employs a misappropriated media campaign to prove that the units can function independently on a plot of Barcelona public land under private management. In doing so this sort of housing comes to be demanded by and offers alternatives to sectors of the population with limited financial resources and/or willing to rent property without any hope of ever owning it. Renters have the option of actively participating in the physical assembly of the prototype with the double intention of lowering expenditures as well as personalising and dignifying their own housing. Materials include: collapsible steel structure, double-T wooden joints, sandwich panel (water-repellent board - polyester - OSB), auxiliary steel structures, aluminium frames, sandwich panel (steel - polyurethane - steel), plasticized PVC steel sheet; PVC cases; cellular polycarbonate, glass and sandwich plate (aluminium - polyethylene - aluminium); as well as co-ordination by friends, family members or collaborators to facilitate the prototype's assembly in a reduced period of time with the necessary machinery and auxiliary materials.