Text description provided by the architects. A place conceived for and from the civil participation, as espacio VIAS case, means a strong investment for people to get involved in the urban structure and constitution. The project restores an ancient rail building for art production, provides a brand new equipment for the youth and regenerates a new area in the city centre through the recovery of FEVE tracks as public space.
An urban project, which incorpores the old railway infrastructure with new possibilities of this “hotpoint” within León, Spain. The relations between mobility, architecture and social and urban sustainability set the basis for the development of this project: minimizing resources and taking advantage of the opportunity to work together between management, architecture and city.
The semi-derelict appearance that the old building, also known as “cocheras” of FEVE presents makes necessary a moderate intervention, in order to allow the public access as well as the correct development of any activity. This intervention must only be considered as the restoration and recovery of what already exists, just adding logical elements in terms of storage, health & safety, lighting and the sound system that the schedule of activities will require.
Flexibility, accumulation and undetermined function make espacio VIAS project a very close space to develop lines of action that should help design cultural strategies, settled on the aforementioned infrastructure and to be expressed into citizen activities of cultural promotion and the creation of networks according to young public.