The Circular Economy Innovation Center comes from the previous project Mares de Reciclaje, a space where to promote innovative projects that generate sustainable employment linked to the social economy and the culture of recycling.
The new center (CIEC) of Madrid is a project of the Government Area of Economy, Innovation and Employment of the Madrid City Council. This proposal is a business incubator to promote the transformation of companies from a linear model to a circular model.
Local
Spain
Comunidad de Madrid, Madrid, España
Mainly urban
It refers to a physical transformation of the built environment (hard investment)
Yes
Urban Innovative Actions 2015
No
Yes
2021-12-21
As a representative of an organization, in partnership with other organisations
Name of the organisation(s): todo por la praxis Type of organisation: Non-profit organisation First name of representative: Peris Last name of representative: Diego Gender: Male Nationality: Spain Function: President Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Manuel Laguna 19 Town: Madrid Postal code: 28005 Country: Spain Direct Tel:+34 630 66 46 28 E-mail:todoporlapraxis@gmail.com Website:https://todoporlapraxis.es
Mares de Madrid is a project of resilience and urban transformation from the social economy. In the social, ecological and cultural context of the city of Madrid, this capacity refers to the numerous previous experiences that citizens have developed to cope with the crisis: self-employment initiatives, recovery of disused spaces or economic or mutual support networks. Thus, among the central objectives of Mares is the creation of companies, the generation of productive and community fabric and the promotion of good citizen and institutional practices that lead to a much more sustainable, healthy and cooperative city to face the current climate emergency. Mares recovers and reuses old buildings of the city and turns them into innovation hubs distributed in different districts. These hubs, which we call Mares, are each linked to the challenges facing the city. Mares is the acronym for Mobility, Food, Recycling, Energy and Care.
The Sea of Recycling is a space to promote innovative projects that generate sustainable employment linked to the social economy and the culture of recycling.
The building is located in the district of Vicálvaro, which is the only district without public facilities to recover, since what it lacks is precisely public facilities. The project is conceived as an eco-social infrastructure for the neighborhood, for the Mares project and for the city of Madrid. A structure erected in two months and prefabricated in a workshop, made of certified wood for a very considerable reduction of CO2 emissions. The space, understood as a place where the productive and the reproductive are intertwined, in an exterior and an interior in continuity. In addition to the recycling sea, there are community gardens, outdoor spaces for shade and meeting and a whole living plot for the enjoyment of economic and innovation projects in addition to the development of initiatives linked to the coexistence with the fabric of the district.
Circular Economy
Urban resilience
Social economy
Co-design
Hub
The project is developed from a reduction of CO2 emissions and a photovoltaic generation that brings it closer to a near-zero emissions building. The intervention has a 50% energy saving over a conventional building and 25KW of photovoltaic production that gives a forecast of 35,000 KWh/year of solar energy generation. The building designed as Mar de Reciclaje will be adapted in the near future to be the Center for Innovation and Circular Economy of the City of Madrid (CIEC)Building means applying technological processes to the landing of ideas. These processes in MARES are worked from an eco-social perspective and from resilience. We can list some points of this approach:
>> Priority is given to efficient construction approaches, in low CO2 emissions, inclusive and favoring functional diversity and care.
>>The concept of Km0 production is established for most of the furniture and infrastructures as local production.
>>Priority is given to construction in certified wood as eco-social sustainability for our forests.
>> The recovery as a form of spatial approach to abandoned lots.
Designing has to do with anticipating the next process. With giving a material, technological sense to the processes that will take place in the following process, which is a work of architecture, so that they operate from a sense of sustainability, adaptability and reversibility. Designing has to do with grounding, with investigating, with turning things around, in a collective way as well. In the case of MARES, the architects specialized in co-design processes have put themselves to the test, creating a system of exchange and a collective projecting that has permeated the proposed solutions and the work of "translation" that is required in the collection of ideas.
The projecting in MARES has been carried out from "a projecting" especially mobility, food, recycling, energy and care. Trying to open new questions from the space, the multiplicity of needs, the diverse materialities, to the challenges posed by the project. The seas continue to be from the project, the places that maximize the intensity of the collective decisions of collecting. The project merges with a prototyping.
The project is proposed as an ecosocial infrastructure for the neighborhood, the MARES project and the city of Madrid. A public space, in transition, towards a development of more effective ecological infrastructures from the public. The space, understood as a place where the productive and the reproductive are intertwined, in an exterior and an interior in continuity. In addition to the sea of recycling, there are community gardens, outdoor spaces for shade and meeting and a whole living plot for the enjoyment of the projects under development and the neighbors in coexistence. Fablabs, workspaces, coworking, conferences and lectures, food spaces and recycling as a key element in a building where the circularity of the economy and ecology are manifested from its architecture.
It is the task of the process itself to attend to strategies for the inclusion of the informal in excessively formal public processes. Design capabilities range from the plan, drawing, materialization and practice. In all of them it is necessary to design a previous strategy for the inclusion of the informal in the project within the defined technical and legal scope.
It is very difficult to maintain a tension of interaction around ideas in processes that must be simultaneous with technical requirements and legal regulations. If a priori, the processes linked to architecture and construction are complex in themselves, they can become even more so when co-design is practiced, as a measure to incorporate uncertainty and collective learning as the project progresses. There is no point in designing together if the process leads to a lack of multiplicity of views and situations. From what position do we speak when we enunciate certain ideas and approaches?
If the co-design is carried out from a who with a multiplicity of views that involve the spatial and the material, in a formal and legal process, such as the one we explained before, the specific is confronted with the standard, the normativized and the legally approved as possible to execute. The degrees of normative freedom in the construction and materialization of elements are strict and combining both is a very difficult task. However, co-design ensures that this aspect can be negotiated, since it is here where certain processes of spatial and material innovation take place from the collective design.
For MARES de Madrid co-designing the architecture and the spatial and material processes of MARES has to do with understanding the [co-], as a co-production of design. This means that the design does not end when the building is finished. Co-production implies a day-to-day work of practice, where the ideas previously proposed are validated or modified. The co-production of practices implies a processual work that takes place from homes and domestic spaces to public spaces, passing through institutions, schools, workplaces, transportation, etc. For the collection of ideas to be effective, there is a prior process of alignment of wills around a common goal. In this case the alignment can be expressed as follows: we have a common goal of designing the recovery of public spaces to be spaces for learning, social entrepreneurship, cooperative work that generate innovative urban processes from the creation of social economy cooperative enterprises.
The first thing is to try to give meaning to the creation of a previously unseen urban space. We must answer the question "What is a sea? To do this, nothing better than collecting ideas from the practices we do today and those we would like to improve or transform. Always from the everyday. There is a whole body of knowledge based on the innovative practice of many citizen initiatives in each city that can be a design engine for architecture. We tend to require spaces for different agents and jobs, instead of thinking of spaces that have different formats that allow multiple activities of different agents. Seek to design spaces that allow to be several things at different times. A coworking space can be a meeting space and conference venue at different times. Practicing ideas would have to do with the sense of co-production. Practicing in the space of the seas, activities and knowledge that are then transferred to our homes, schools, work places, etc.
We all have a previous experience with respect to places, the culture of those places and their practice. A neighbor has a different prior experience about a space than a technician who, for example, assesses the structural capacity of an abandoned building. Both can agree on the bad aspect of a cracked wall, but their experience is different, and both contribute to a possible solution for the space that generates the recovery or absence of that cracked wall. This is how we see it from MARES. On the other hand, the experience is situated. As we said at the beginning, the aggregation of ideas must be accompanied by the inclusion in the process of experiences from different knowledge and personal backgrounds.
The usual scheme of conventional projects tends to operate in a linear and closed manner. With great difficulty in allowing the entry of uncertainty at various points. The process is established on the basis of needs that make up a program where a technical manager tries to compose a project between a given program, architectural, spatial and material intentions that constitute an open system in phases.
As we have mentioned above, for MARES de Madrid, co-design has to do with the co-production of design. This diagram tries to make us understand in a simple and synthetic way where the most intense points of mediation take place. These points are the places where expertise and experience produce the greatest exchanges, and allow that in the processes of designing, building and naming, open entries can be given to collect and practice ideas in a continuous way and with more circularity. That is to say, with more capacity of simultaneous different processes.
MARES is driven and participated by multiple agents from different areas. The diverse backgrounds and trajectories converge in a material project in which several questions about who does the co-design land. To reach this common goal from a multitude of different people, in different situations for the collection of ideas. People from the team, outside the team, technicians, specialists in each area of MARES, civil servants of the city of Madrid, workers, technicians and representatives of each district, social economy projects, citizen initiatives, neighbors.
The different working teams of the MARES project (Todo por la Praxis, Dinamia, Grupo Cooperativo Tangente, Estudio SIC, Vivero de Iniciativas Ciudadanas, Ecooo, Agencia para el Empleo y Acción contra el hambre, Ayuntamiento de Madrid) working on its execution and implementation. The different working teams of the MARES project working on its execution and implementation. Leaders of each Sea; Communication Teams; Entrepreneurship Teams; Skills Laboratory; Territorial Agitation; Specific Services; MARES Project Management; MARES Project Architects.
Social economy projects Economic initiatives of the territories that are linked to the MARES project at different moments of the spatial dynamics and processes. In the design, in the work, in its practice. Citizen initiatives linked to the territories or to the project's areas of citizen innovation: mobility, food, recycling, energy or care. Open participation of neighbors and agents of territorial proximity around the new infrastructure for the district, essential for the local implementation of each Sea. Throughout these three years of the project, almost 100 people belonging to eight different entities and the Madrid City Council have worked within the European MARES project to create quality productive fabric, promote social and solidarity economy and, ultimately, contribute to urban transformation and improvement.
The MARES project in Madrid, developed within the European initiative Urban Innovative Actions, aims at its ambitious goal: to transform the city of Madrid through the social and solidarity economy. To this end, we have worked hand in hand with key stakeholders to create the first circular economy center in the Community of Madrid.
In the short term, MARES sought to generate new sustainable and quality productive fabric. And it has succeeded. Thanks to specialized support services (called specific services), 48 new productive entities have been created, most of them under social and solidarity economy formulas. In addition, more than 300 economic initiatives have benefited from the project's proposals and have actively participated in its ecosystem. Of these, 91 have been incubated in the spaces.
Major changes take time. For this reason, part of MARES' activities have been aimed at raising awareness among Madrid's neighbors about the need to apply more sustainable and viable production models to current urban challenges. More than 13,000 people have participated in nearly 1,000 training and awareness-raising events, both sectoral and general, including more than 40 Practice-Oriented Learning Communities (PACs).
MAR is a space where people with projects, projects with people and projects with projects are linked. Each MAR is a spatial and material infrastructure that is arranged as a facilitator and linking element between different citizen projects. An ecosystem where citizen practices, associations, and companies have a place to develop collectively. In this process, the sea accompanies the process of turning your idea or initiative into a productive project through the social and solidarity economy. The MARES are places where the multiplicity of ideas and profiles that feed the open innovation ecosystem intensifies.
MARES has addressed the eco-social challenges affecting entrepreneurship with a collective and innovative approach, assuming social transformation and the principles of the social and solidarity economy as a fundamental axis. Thanks to this creative spirit, MARES has designed and implemented various strategies built in the heat of citizenship and with a high degree of social innovation.
It is the process for the aggregation of meaning, ideas and practices and the materialization of design in a collective way. In MARES this co-design is proposed for a broader process of urban co-production of the reclaimed buildings and plots that we call sea.
It has nothing to do [only] with designing together, but in favoring the diversity of ideas and approaches. There is no point in designing together if the process leads to a lack of multiplicity in the views and situations. This action has to do with adding diversity.
It is not [just] favoring the multitude of agents in the decision-making processes, but favoring this approach from feminism, childhood, functional diversity, gender perspective. Multiplicity, from other approaches, allows the design to move forward and the concrete project to position itself. From what position do we speak when we enunciate certain ideas and approaches?
It is not related [only] to processes of self-construction and self-management. It is important to be based on a practice of doing, but it is not always possible when we enter into formal and legal processes of construction with the public, as is the case of MARES. Neither [only] the expert does his or her own thing, nor does everyone do everything. Instead, it is a process of combining different experiences and competencies. It is not [just] about agreeing on a definitive joint solution, but finding a way to preserve a progressive and open adaptation that allows for lasting collective interactions over time.
It is a physical support susceptible of expanding beyond the scope of the seas, nesting in objects, colonizing urban furniture or disembarking in spaces other than the seas. Such devices function as a system of urban pollination of the practices of the seas, going beyond their own spatial limits.
This design in resilience involves thinking in three terms. The first is that design is not only an initial phase, but a continuous process that links with the existing. On the other hand, the diversity of agents and technologies in design increases the capacity for resilience. Finally, the agents co-produce the design in their strategy, but above all in the day-to-day practice of MARES and the generation of community inward and outward. In this way, MARES designs its spatial processes. The social, the material and the spatial are closely linked in the Mares with endowments, equipment and common resources. It is the process for the aggregation of meaning, ideas and practices and the materialization of design in a collective way.
In the development of MARES, a dimension has been very present which, because it is ubiquitous, sometimes becomes invisible: the territory. In order to bring the project's objectives closer to the neighbors, we have actively articulated with key social, economic, educational and institutional agents, as well as with hyperlocal media. The result of this alliance are actions aimed at raising awareness of social and solidarity economy and raising awareness on the change of production and consumption model.
Metropolitan areas face many challenges related to employment, migration, demographics, water, inequalities, pollution. But they are also engines of new ideas and solutions, places where change happens on a larger scale and at an accelerated pace.
The city of Madrid faces several of these challenges. On the economic front, since 2008 the impact of the economic crisis in Madrid has produced major transformations. Numerous jobs have been destroyed, and unemployment and poverty have become chronic in many sectors of the population. Inequalities have increased, as have the differences between the north and south of the city. Moreover, it is necessary to change the city model in order to meet environmental challenges. The environment and people's health are being weighed down by a model that generates pollution, energy dependence and voracious and unsustainable consumption. Finally, long distances and urban transport times, job insecurity, the demographic structure and the lack of official support make it difficult for families to care for the elderly, take care of children and domestic chores.
Mares is a project of urban transformation and social economy. The project is developed around urban and economic resilience, that is, the ability of people, technologies and ecosystems to adapt to unforeseen situations. Translated into the city of Madrid, this capacity refers to the numerous experiences that citizens have developed to cope with the crisis: self-employment initiatives, recovery of disused spaces or economic or mutual support networks. Thus, among the central objectives of Mares is the creation of businesses, the generation of productive and community fabric and the promotion of good citizen and institutional practices that will lead to a much more sustainable city. and institutional best practices that lead to a much more sustainable, healthy and cooperative city.
