MADRID STUDY
An urban study of the Lavapies area in Madrid

Research by Robert Devir, Ola Keijer, Ren Horng Yee and Audun Hellemo

The project is an urban study of the area Lavapies in central Madrid. The area is characterized by its mixed ethnic population and concidered dangerous by the spanish population. A traditional mapping suggests certain areas defined by ethnicity, but our own experience showed that this might be a too simple understanding. We scanned the entire area and recorded the complete elevations, before we analyzed the material in terms of program, ethnicity and position in the urban fabric. Using this analytic tool further, we discovered potential ethnic routes and paths, explaining how the different immigrant groups as well as the original spanish inhabitants could seemingly share the same space and at the same time be disconnected from each other. When interviewing the users of the area, the tension between the different groups was confirmed, with pressing issues as fear, disintegration and closed communities. The vast number of chinese wholesale stores in the area enhances the problematics, operating only at certain times of the day - leaving streets dead and filling potential space up. We believe that the diversity in the area also enriches the city - this is currently being threatened by the gentrification process resulting in higher prices and eventually displacement of the current inhabitants.

The study leads to our Intervention

The project is originally presented as an interactive website which is online at the Urban Body Website.

Teacher's comment:
Nicolas: This is a project that really makes use of the idea of the derive