The Showroom | [POSTPONED] Working Group 1: Right To Build

Join us for the first in a series of working groups that constitute an integral part of Recetas Urbanas’ current exhibition Affection As Subversive Architecture. Led by Recetas Urbanas (Santiago Cirugeda and Alice Attout) and architect Blanca Pujals, this workshop will explore the various ways in which children and young people can participate in processes of designing and self-building spaces in the city.

As part of the workshop, Recetas Urbanas will share case studies from selected previous projects in which children have either led or integrally contributed to processes of self-construction, with the tools and agency to work both independently and collaboratively alongside parents, teachers and the Recetas Urbanas team. As a group, we will then explore the current legal frameworks and insurance policies surrounding children's rights to participate in self-building and participatory urban construction methods, and share examples of existing mutual assistance networks in London, circuits for reusing materials and sharing resources.

There will be opportunities to share knowledge, experiences and understanding of self-building policies and strategies; with the aim of creating conversations and networks between groups in London working with children towards collective urban building projects.

Following the workshop there will be an opportunity to spend time with the exhibition at The Showroom, exploring the range of case studies and publications from Recetas Urbanas’ past projects on display.

Recetas Urbanas is a design and advocacy collective of architects, lawyers and social workers led by Spanish architect Santiago Cirugeda and Alice Attout, who joined in 2008. The collective is based in Seville, Spain and brings to life self-built projects that rely on local participation to realise mobile structures using locally sourced, second and third-hand materials. Their work activates different areas of urban reality globally, from creating temporary sites for community discussion with shipping containers and architectural prostheses, to implementing new social housing models in collaboration with local governments. These projects are highly functional yet legally provocative, often challenging the lawfulness surrounding the occupation of public space.

Image: Children helping to construct The School Grows project at the Madrid School of Design. Courtesy of Recetas Urbanas

Blanca Pujals is an architect, spatial researcher and critical writer. Blanca’s cross-disciplinary practice is based on spatial research and critical analysis to engage with questions of contemporary culture, philosophy of science and transnational politics, developing tools for undertaking analysis through different visual and sonic devices. She approaches geographies of power on bodies and territories and the material conditions of regimes of representation through a wide approach to the idea of architecture. Her work encompasses film, architecture, lecturing, curatorial projects, teaching and critical writing.

Blanca has a BA in Architecture from Barcelona School of Architecture, and an MA in Critical Theory and Museum Studies from the Independent Studies Program at MACBA, Barcelona, where she was taught by philosopher Paul B. Preciado. She was recently a postgraduate at the Centre for Research Architecture in the Visual Cultures Department at Goldsmiths, University of London, directed by Susan Schuppli and Eyal Weizman. Blanca is currently developing a practice-led PhD in Arts and Sciences.