jorge pizarro jorge@pizarrojorge.com ensaladaworks.com pizarrojorge.com Lecturer University of Virginia Co-founder Ensalada Works Bachelor’s Degree in Architecture Master’s Degree in Architecture Technical University of Madrid-ETSAM 2015 NAAB Substancial Equivalency Accreditation Master BIM Autodesk Acredited 2017 Registered Architect COAM 21.315
Eclecticism is the word. Like a jazz musician who creates his own style out of the styles around him, I play by ear.� Ralph Ellison
Jorge Pizarro is an architect and urban planner graduated at the Technical University of Madrid, Spain, where he completed his Master’s degree in 2015 with honors. His Final Thesis Project worked around the topic of urban and social sustainability under the title “Ahmedabad: Urban Fabrics in Conflict”, this project was tutored by Professor Luis Pancorbo who is at the moment assistant professor at the University of Virginia School of Architecture. Following the completion of the Master’s Degree Thesis project he had the opportunity to work and collaborate with several architectural practices like Estudio SIC and HUSOS Architects, developing projects in Madrid and at the Bauhaus in Dessau. During this time, he was involved in several research projects such as “In-stitutional and Ex-titutional Real Estate Processes in Madrid” in collaboration with Vivero de Iniciativas Ciudadanas and PAH Madrid within the ARCHIPRIX Workshop where he led a group of international students. After finishing this period, he established, among some university colleagues, his own architectural office, Ensalada Works, trying to explore new architectural fields, with a special interest in new ways of approaching our environments and contexts, based on the interconnection of professionals and fields. He has also been involved in the creation of Fragments Of: an international network of architectural academic workshops held in cities that are interesting for their cultural, social and economic distance; He has participated as organizer, coordinator, and lecturer in workshops in Ahmedabad, India and Johannesburg, South Africa. At the moment he is developing his academic activity at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, VA, where he works as a lecturer for the Department of Architecture.
BUILT & UNDER CONSTRUCTION
HOYO DE MANZANARES SPORTS CENTER Madrid, Spain Competition. 1st Prize
Client: Hoyo de Manzanares Council Location: Hoyo de Manzanares, Madrid, Spain Program: Sports Center Status: 1st Prize. 2018 - Under construction Authors: Ensalada Works
The Mountain Skin is the project for the extension of the existing Sports Center in the town of Hoyo de Manzanares, 40km from Madrid’s city center and just 10km away from the highest mountains of the area. The project seeks direct assimilation with the environment, creating a second faceted and triangular skin that wraps the new spaces, presenting a broken volume that reduces the visual impact and renews the image of the old sports center. The triangulation becomes the leitmotiv of the intervention introducing this geometry in different points of the project. The integration of adjacent urban environment with the new building is done through the creation of an entrance that will act as a new square.
LOS HUERTOS 10 DWELLINGS Huesca, Spain
Client: Los Huertos de Sallent Cooperative Location: Sallent de Gรกllego, Huesca, Spain Program: 10 dwellings Status: 2017 - Under construction Authors: Ensalada Works Collaborators: NRA Architects
Located in a consolidated historical area, privileged by the surrounding natural environment, the commission to design 10 houses in block for a neighborhood cooperative is approached based on the idea of having a continuous dialogue with the future inhabitants to carry out a participatory design process. The normative restrictions of the historic center allow little variations at the aesthetic level, however, yet the visual impact of the new construction is mitigated by breaking the building and transforming it into two different volumes. These two new volumes are integrated into the urban fabric and their difference in height decreases the total impact on the landscape, seeking to continue with the variegation and clogging typical of the area.
FIVE DWELLINGS, ONE HOME Madrid, Spain
Client: CDAI SL Location: Madrid, Spain Program: 5 dwellings rehabilitation Status: 2017. Built Authors: Ensalada Works Starting from a dilapidated building of narrow proportions, the project seeks to investigate the limits of privacy and the possibility that architecture itself generates relationships between those who inhabit it. The project consists of 5 houses articulated by a corridor and a central courtyard. Removing unnecessary barriers, each house is transformed into an unique space increasing natural light with big windows and white surfaces. Every house has the complete privacy option, but playing with crossed visual lines, distances, translucent and transparent glasses and common areas, the project gives the possibility of a true community that crosses the walls of private spaces.
A HOME BETWEEN THE WALLS Madrid, Spain A floor, two walls and a box.
Client: Borja Badiola Ramos Location: Madrid, Spain Program: Home Rehabilitation Status: 2017-2018. Built Authors: Ensalada Works
One single space articulated by the two structural walls crossing the dwelling. The bathroom: a piece that can be used from the inside or the outside space, expanding its llimits and its simultaneous use. The colour, a tool not only used to identify those architectural elements, but also a nostalgic memory of a past life in Mexico.
Before
After
THE HALL, THE HOUSE AND THE PATIO Madrid, Spain
Client: Fernando CabaĂąas & Lina Pellicer Location: Madrid, Spain Program: Home Rehabilitation Status: 2017. Built Authors: Ensalada Works
Three spaces that articulate amongst themselves. First of all, the superfluous is removed in search of the structural and functional essence. Corridors and passages are eliminated, served and servant spaces no longer exist, but rather a continuous and uninterrupted flow of actions and activities. Divisions and fragments are reduced to the minimum and partitions are understood and designed as flexible planes that provide an opportunity to play with changes on opacity and transparency and generate a continuous space. The Hall* will be a dynamic and flexible space of encounter, where a wide range of alternative activities could take place, and the constructive essence of the dwelling is revealed. The House* will be a protected and warm space where the user can modify the perception of the threshold and therefore contrast or blur the difference within the more private or public atmospheres. Finally, the Patio* will be a space for dreaming and evoking that provides air and freshness, making possible an alternative circulation, a playful experience.
OLD JEFFREY STORE Madrid, Spain Within a single interior 3 environments are generated that suppose a thematic and perceptive rupture but maintaining the spatial continuity. Client: Old Jeffrey SL Location: Madrid, Spain Program: Retail and store design Status: 2017. Built Authors: Ensalada Works
Three environments associated with collective memories related to tradition, materiality and the romantic spirit of the value of craftsmanship. The workshop, the tailor shop and the geographical area. “The Store� becomes a flexible container capable of hosting different activities over time, generating meetings and fostering the unexpected. The space is redefined with each arrangement of its devices, but always maintaining its essence and character. Tailoring, workshops, meeting spaces, events, happenings...
FBS15 Madrid, Spain
Client: Susana Senbrango & Ignacio Badioal Location: Madrid, EspaĂąa Program: Home Rehabilitation Status: 2015-2016. Built Authors: Ensalada Works
This work consists on the full refurbishment of a two floor housing in the centre of Madrid that will host a family expecting its third child and whose needs will drastically change along the next years. For that reason, the house is meant as an unfinished space constantly changing to respond to the life changes that accompany its inhabitants. In its initial state, the house has large and fluid spaces, where the absence of physical barriers (open spaces, disappearing doors into walls, very little partitions) allows eye contact for a family with dependent but naughty little people, understanding the family vital space as an extensive playground. As residents grow and needs for large spaces are reduced, the house will be fragmented to respond to these new situations and requirements of independence, while maintaining the leading role of the common family gathering spaces such as the kitchen and living room. The whole house has been adapted to improve its climate conditions with better insulation and crossed ventilation.
CARPO Madrid, Spain
Client: Carpo “Gourmet Healthy Food” Location: Pozuelo de Alarcón, Madrid, España Program: Restaurant Status: 2016. Built Authors: Ensalada Works Collaborators: Lorna de Santos
Carpo is a gastronomic meeting place with a deep focus on the natural and the healthy. It stands as a space of worship to well-being and contact with our environment through restoration, where the human is made present in nature. Gastronomy and space are united under the same premise: to be in contact with our environment. The nature, the environment and the combination of its elements are fundamental parts of the creation of the Carpo identity. In order to reflect the balanced plurality of our surroundings, Carpo is satisfied by the harmonious accumulation of elements, ingredients and pieces, which, when united, mixed and combined, present a coherent whole without losing the individual identity of each one. As in the gastronomic section, where these ingredients are combined and varied to result in elaborations that put us in contact with our nature, the space project follows the same premise generating 4 spaces that refer directly to natural environments: the jungle, the desert, the sea and the sky; And that combined generate a cohesive and harmonious set within the plurality.
LCDTO Madrid, Spain
Client: Olga Ramos Aguilar Location: Madrid, España Program: Home Rehabilitation Status: 2016. Built Authors: Ensalada Works
The project is the renovation of the attic of Olga in the center of Madrid. The previous state of the dwelling proposed different rooms separated by partitions: a bedroom and a living-dining room. This configuration did not respond to the needs of the client, an independent woman looking for an environment with greater possibilities. The objective was to achieve a flexible, dynamic and adaptable space that managed to multiply functionally the surface of the house. I It articulates a strategy by which the spatial modifications, which will result in a flexible space, do not have to compromise the state of the house in excess, but should be part of it, they should not become mere objects of furniture, nor should they arbitrarily modify the pre-existing construction elements. Under this premise a project is developed based on two fundamental decisions: the construction of a malleable “partition” and the creation of a “bed space”. These two simple surgical invasions will be able to completely modify the way of inhabiting the house, achieving a transformable and multiple space.
NKURINGO SCHOOL Nkuringo, Uganda The project works around three main concepts: Client: Little Silverback, NGO Location: Nkuringo, Uganda Program: School Status: 2017- Under construction Authors: Ensalada Works
Open covered spaces. What is most needed in this area is something as simple as this, rains are abundant, all children stick to the walls in the little space covered by the roof, stopping any activity that they are doing as well as soaking in. This constant humidity causes health issues so covering the space allowing to go from any place to another under cover is key. Flexible and expandable. Ten modulated rooms, adding covered spaces that remain at the sides to allow future expansion for future requirements. Respect the large open space. In Nkuringo large flat surfaces are scarce and children need to travel long distances to play football. Taking advantage of the fact that the plot is already in a place like this, there is no need to “interrupt� this space with buildings, letting the landscape and views intact.
COMPETITIONS
SCUOLE INNOVATIVE Gorizia, Italy
Client: Ministero d’Educazione Italiano Location: Gorizia, Italy Program: School Status: 2017. Competition Authors: Ensalada Works Collaborators: Zuloark & Tipi Studio
The new asylum of Savogna d’Isonzo will be a building for everyone and everyone, functional and scale of its small inhabitants. The project is based on a fundamental principle, simplicity. A modular system, made possible by a sophisticated and extremely innovative construction system (beech wood microlamellar panels), will allow the design of spaces through a participatory process with the look of a game in which professors, parents and children can take part of, to take decisions of the form and function of their future school. This modular system as well as simplifying and directing shared choices will allow easier project phases management. One of the main concerns of the project is to give a singular character to each classroom, a true identity of the function. The cover form of the base module will allow children to quickly associate a space with an activity. Two design scales were also worked on, one being architectural (simple structural modules), to suit the adult person to make the building fully functional and one for children, working mainly on activators.
MACCHINA DA CUCIRE Bologna, Italy
Client: SANI di Bologna Location: Bologna, Italy Program: Urban Strategy Status: 2017. Competition Authors: Ensalada Works Collaborators: Zuloark
URBAN DIVERSITY as an ADDED VALUE The various aspirations concerning the management of the urban resources cannot be reached simultaneously by the different actors involved in urban regeneration. Theopposition is generated from the projection of these different aspirations in the global and collective field, and the need to make a shared decision on the use and management of the common good. The need to get to an agreement forces us to consider different points of view and explore new possible solutions. Collaboration doesn´t exists without enthusiasm or curiosity, collaboration doesn´t work without opposition, the City is built though collaboration. The action of building the city manifests itself in the project as a game which rules lead to a negotiation process between the involved actors, in charge of solving the disputes that arise by sharing space. In this first phase we represent a hypothetical scenario in which the negotiation process can be conducted.
CALLE MAHOU Madrid, Spain
Client: Mahou Location: Madrid, EspaĂąa Program: Cultural building Status: 2016. Competition Authors: Ensalada Works
The spanish beer brand Mahou wants to transform the old palace of Duque del Infantado into a space linked to Madrid and its people, reinforcing the aim of being a company that, born in Madrid in 1890, it belongs to its history and tradition. A street that is added to the existing urban fabric of the city to become a new landmark for Madrid. The city expands inside the building gaining ground for its citizens, spaces to colonize, active and reactive spaces. A street that reflects the idiosyncrasies of Madrid, its culture, its elements, its activities, its roots with spaces recognizable by the user full of locals elements. New spaces full of tradition.
FOLLOW THE WHITE RABBIT Madrid, Spain
Client: COAM Location: Madrid, EspaĂąa Program: Cultural building Status: 2016. Competition Authors: Ensalada Works
Our life is made up of mediations and interfaces with our environment and with ourselves, but our context has expanded. We live in the era of the expansion of our realities, giving rise to intermediate points of hybridization and opportunity. The proposal tries to generate a hybrid between two apparently distant realities, the physical and the virtual, a point of communion between analog and digital. The COAM becomes a prototype of an expanded society. A third environment that acts as a link with a global world, interconnected yet close, that in a bidirectional way reflects on our role in a context where new forms of communication and creation in a network are already an irrefutable fact. A program of revitalization of the COAM’s opportunity spaces is proposed through the hybrid innovation between parallel realities, spaces of physical and virtual interconnection where to create, reflect and share.
ONCE THERE WAS AN EARTH Toronto, Canada
Client: Canada city Council Location: Toronto, Canada Program: Instalation Status: 2016. Competition Authors: Ensalada Works
Pleasure and death are combined in every living being without altering the natural order. Except in our species, in which the balance favours the pleasure without realizing what it entails. This imbalance is embodied in a facility that is a wakeup call, a place to enjoy and have fun but with a high price, the disappearance. The intention is to create, in the end, a feeling of regret in the user, who perceives the negative effects associated with their personal enjoyment.
RESEARCH & EDUCATION
Indian Urban Fabrics in Conflict Ahmedabad, India
Location: Ahmedabad, India Program: Urban Rehabilitation Final Thesis Project
The project is focused on the northwest area of Ahmedabad on a settlement that has been left out of formal planning being considered rural land and over the years has been absorbed by the city suffering various modifications and turning it into a complex fabric with a manifested lack of dialogue with a city that has surrounded it and whose development model is very different from the traditional fabric of the neighborhood. Through a strategy with three main areas: treatment of public space, traditional housing model, and new models of growth in height, the project seeks to revitalize this area and establish a dialogue with their environment without losing the positive aspects of the area and trying to safeguard traditional Indian idiosyncrasies.
Fragments Of
Location: Ahmedabad, India
Johannesburg, South Africa
Research and education
Fragments of is a set of academic workshops held in cities that are interesting for its cultural, social and economic distance. These workshops seek to learn from these environments through the study of their fragments, portions of what they are, allowing the accumulative partiality build the understanding of the context. Over a period of 3 to 4 weeks, the students travel to a city in a context of rapid growth and transformation, to study a particular urban fragment, defined by its physical and social environment or fragments. The understanding of the context requires the analysis of the factors that shape it: their culture, their values, their history, their beliefs and traditions, the technologies used, its legal framework, social structures, economy and business fabric, its urban configuration and means of transport, the types of built and unbuilt space, connections and edge conditions, energy resources and efficiency, its streets and the activity that it occurs throughout the day, throughout the year.
THE WELCOME HOTEL Madrid, Spain
Client: Oslo Triennale Location: Madrid, Spain Program: Research project Status: 2016 Authors: Estudio SIC VIC Collaborators: Jorge Pizarro The Welcome Hotel is a paradoxical place for the urban and social concentration of Madrid’s evictions. A temporary accommodation not only for tourists, but also for political refugees, undocumented migrants and families that have been evicted from their homes. Even though there are more than 260,000 empty homes in Madrid, around 300,000 mortgages have been foreclosed on since 2009 in the city.
GROPIUS EVICTED Dessau, Germany
Client: Haushaltsmesse 2015 Location: Dessau, Germany Program: Research project Status: 2015 Authors: Estudio SIC VIC Collaborators: Jorge Pizarro
What happens when we do not have a house from where our domestic and family economy is distributed? Where is all this when we do not have a house to live? The project investigates the reconfiguration of non-economic capital in a process of eviction. The three parts and the pieces of the project are installed in 3 rooms of the apartment in the basement of the Gropius MasterHouse in Bauhaus: in the Hab01, the deprived Domesticities, in the Hab02 the topology of the domestic and familiar as the matching system and in the Hab03 urban bodies as a result of a broad and complex investigation on evictions in the city of Madrid and its citizens.
255 Madrid, Spain
Location: Madrid, Spain Program: Editorial project Status: 2011-2016 Authors: 255 Collaborators: Jorge Pizarro 255 is an experimental editorial architecture platform with a periodic publication format promoted by the Delegation of Students of the School of Architecture of Madrid (DAETSAM). It takes its name from the RGB code for white (255,255,255), understood as a symbol of what is intended to be filled with content.
jorge@pizarrojorge.com ensaladaworks.com pizarrojorge.com