Superphosphates!
In later years, highly speculative real estate operations have surrounded the abandon mining complex of Aldea Moret, a nineteen century industrial development in Caceres, Spain, endangering its mayor urban and architectural values. In 2007 the burst of the real estate bubble stopped the private plans to redevelop the site. Caceres City Hall took over the site and asked for an alternative model of development that had to integrate advanced preservation ideas, energetic and ecological sustainability, participative planning polices and the declaration of the abandon mining complex as National Industrial Heritage Site. Superphosphates! Is the result of that call and its first phase ‚ planning‚ is currently under development.
Superphosphates!, is a strategic plan that defines the steps to transform the mining village in a center for innovation. In the context of Caceres candidacy to the European Cultural capital 2016, Superphosphates! recycles the obsolete mining infrastructure to secure the site against future redevelopments. The galleries, the lighting systems, the deposits of mineral, and the ruined concrete buildings recover its structural functions. Adapted to the new needs of the neighborhood, the mining infrastructure maintains its iconic presence while contributes to the energetic and ecological sustainability housing the urban systems: i.e. sewer systems, electricity, gas, water, wireless networks, water treatment facilities, centralized garbage treatment facility, etc. Ultimately, Superphosphates! re-imagines the mining village in a prototype of self-managed sustainable neighborhood of 850.000sqf, that reduces its dependence of the centralized urban systems of the city.
Initially implemented in the form of a book compiling strategies to contain the speculation, Superphosphates! is currently developed as a set of urban regulations commissioned by Caceres City Hall.
Project: Superphosphates!
Status: Completed
Client: Junta de Extremadura
Location: Caceres, Spain
Program: Preservation and Urban Planning
