Competition: Insòlit Festival.
Location: Can Balaguer, Palma de Mallorca.
Authors: Santiago del Águila & Manuel Bouzas
Insòlit festival is an event held in Palma de Mallorca, Spain. The main theme of the event is to rise interest and awareness about the rich cultural heritage present around the city, particularly on traditional houses from the historic urban center of Palma and their courtyards. For one week, scenic or interactive installations, invite the general public to enter and discover the inner workings of these cultural houses. For this year (2019) the guideline theme proposed, in the design competition brief was: Contradiction.
Three parallel overlapping strips of light steel mesh, conform the final composition displayed on the patio. The central strip, hangs off the building’s top terrace cornice, and on the opposite side from the terrace, thin ropes go through a pair window grids, and attach with claps to the wooden beams of the Flores & Prats renovated roof. Down below, both of side meshes are fixed with clamps to the wooden structure of the first floor, and slender ropes that are born from the cornice (in the middle) to suspend and elevate the mid section halfway through the courtyard. The mesh is covered by 20,000 recyclable plastic cups that respond to the color palette of the Festival poster,projecting a vibrant warm light inside. A tear opens a gap in the middle of the surface, this delimits a “corridor”, which physically and visually connect the entrance door with the festival’s information space, at the other end of the courtyard.
