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    Project entry 2014 Europe – X Marks the Spot: Socially-focused architectural design, Spain

    Spatial plan and agricultural restructure: Greenhouse city plan detail: the benefits of coexistence. A natural land that grows, with greenhouses as nurseries, recovery centers of fauna and flora, and an increase in the water level of the aquifers. An agro-industrial land with a higher quality production, with better infrastructure, better pest control, better working conditions, health and safety. Communities with better quality of life, in contact with the natural environment and with an increase in their economy.

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    Project entry 2014 Europe – X Marks the Spot: Socially-focused architectural design, Spain

    Spatial plan and agricultural restructure: The greenhouse city is a spatial planning that gives geographical expression to the economic, social, cultural and ecological policies of society. It is at the same time a scientific discipline, an administrative technique and a policy developed as an interdisciplinary and comprehensive approach directed towards a balanced regional development and the physical organization of space according to an overall strategy.

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    Project entry 2014 Europe – Spatial plan and agricultural restructure, Pujaire, Spain

    Insertion of wildlife corridors between greenhouses that will regulate land use.

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    Project entry 2014 Europe – Spatial plan and agricultural restructure, Pujaire, Spain

    Agro-urban-industrial typologies: example of the services of this greenhouse city.

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    Project entry 2014 Europe – Spatial plan and agricultural restructure, Pujaire, Spain

    Infrastructure: land use control is made by the capacity of each space.

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    Project entry 2014 Europe – Spatial plan and agricultural restructure, Pujaire, Spain

    Smallholding example.

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    Project entry 2014 Europe – Spatial plan and agricultural restructure, Pujaire, Spain

    Agro-urban-industrial example: multiple-use building with a lasting impact on its environment.

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    Project entry 2014 Europe – Spatial plan and agricultural restructure, Pujaire, Spain

    Interior social exchanges/education: field worker, tourist and inhabitant sharing the same space.

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    Project entry 2014 Europe – Spatial plan and agricultural restructure, Pujaire, Spain

    Energy conservation of greenhouse-cortijo (farmhouse).

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    Project entry 2014 Europe – Spatial plan and agricultural restructure, Pujaire, Spain

    Construction system, solitary structures and serial elements.

Last updated: March 31, 2014 Pujaire, Spain

The spatial plan for 600 square kilometers of land used for intensive agriculture in plastic greenhouses in Pujaire, in the region of Almería, Spain, remediates a destroyed natural habitat and declining economy that lacks social infrastructure. The project proposes the rearrangement of water supplies, introduction of wildlife corridors, development of model cities, and enhancement of the greenhouse architecture – all focused on a natural environmental restoration of agro-industrial territories and improvement of social conditions for the region’s inhabitants.

Progress: The water infrastructure network and adobe bunds aid water collection in a region with low rainfall. The design provides a model for transforming ugly and unhealthy greenhouses, an isolated community lacking basic needs, and depleted natural resources into a model city. The plan’s ethical and social responsibility includes converting the greenhouses into a place for work and providing ecological restoration. The local community supplies field workers. Wildlife corridors improve the quality of the fields, improve yields and decrease fertilizer use.

People: The social infrastructure applied to the agro-industrial sites follows urban models, improving health conditions and distributing the necessary natural, industrial and social resources. The plan identifies three stakeholder groups (the field worker, the inhabitant and the tourist), a model of experiential learning enables each to build awareness of the other, develop opinions and improve the reality of the site as a whole.

Planet: The bunds channel run-off from torrential rain, preventing the loss of sediment by capturing it for later use in water tanks. Ecological regeneration using SER (Society for Ecological Restoration) International’s approaches uses the greenhouses for nurturing native vegetation to enhance the natural value of the area.

Prosperity: The project turns around the recent degradation of agricultural product and the diminished value of the region for tourism by restoring the environment, and thereby improving productivity and tourism.

Place: Architecture coexists with the existing forms: between greenhouses, farms, and nature – functioning as a symbol in a subconscious. A greenhouse is designed that embodies the architectural qualities that might appear in the most representative buildings of place, down to the smallest detail.