Articles by Valeria Silva

The new town hall in Remchingen, on a prominent site between federal highway B10 and the green space along the river Pfinz, is conceived as a new center for encounters and communication. Its immediate vicinity is dominated by the Remchingen Cultural Center and a nursing home, which are discrete, self-referential freestanding buildings that do not form an urban spatial relationship to each other.

As a reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic, halo provides an introverted refuge zone for one person. By framing the private space around a person the extend of our individual comfort zone, our own aura is made visible, like an offset around a nucleus – a halo. The resulting contained space is a personal microcosm that can be inserted within any public space, keeping the person inside safe from the thread of physical contagion from people nearby. halo´s skin wraps all around a demountable lightweight steel frame, fully blocking out the risk of infection for its user. Once inside, the focus of attention shifts away from the immediate context at street level to the open sky, provoking an intimate relation with the nature right above us including tree canopies, birds, clouds and the sun, features of our environment that we normally do not pay much attention to in cities.

Located in an ancestral place at Malinalco, México; surrounded by abundant vegetation, on the slope of a hill next to one of the three monolithic pyramids of the world, an Aztec ceremonial center, the site was carefully chosen by the clients due to its unique micro-climate and large trees.