Every day we’re becoming increasingly aware of the need to improve our habits for the sake of our environment, although nonetheless our cities—gigantic and vast—are often far from reflecting this change of paradigm.
For this reason, MINI and Enorme Studio, a young design firm specializing in the public space and participative dynamics have created an original installation situated in the mythical Plaza Santa María Soledad Torres Acosta in Madrid.
This installation, in addition to being a meeting point for design and the city, emphasizing the importance the use of renewable energies. Inside, visitors will find USB charging points and reading points lit by solar energy, as well as the possibility to charge devices with the kinetic energy generated by movement. This new habitable and efficient equipment try to work on the most pressing challenges of daily life.
For over a year MINI has been in the Malasaña neighborhood with its space open to creativity, the MINI Hub, which is now opening up to the outside with this installation. The inside will be invaded by meetings between designers who are rethinking new ways of making a city: city furniture workshops entitled Bench a Day, which will develop new ideas for urban benches; talks on interactive urban stages; new public space laboratories; and talks-debates on how cities of the future will be. All these activities will handle urban design and the city as their main topic to work on in a collaborative, trans-disciplinary and intergenerational way.
This installation, titled Montaña En La Luna (Mountain On The Moon), represents an opportunity to experiment based on the idea of a designer office and portable architecture, on the street and close to users, with which any and all new proposals for cities of the future must be co-designed. This new endeavor by MINI is framed within its objective of improving urban life, contributing to a rational use of resources and maximizing the motto ‘Creative Use of Space’ inherent to the brand’s DNA.
Designers and Curators: Enorme Studio
Client: MINI España / MINI hub / Madrid Design Festival
Builder: CARRSA
Solar Energy and Interactivity Systems: CREÁTICA
Landscape Design: greener-ontheotherside
Location: Plaza de Santa María Soledad Torres Acosta, Madrid, Spain
Photography: Javier de Paz García / Luis Alda