EQUIPO 01’s ephemeral sustainable space

Spanish studio EQUIPO 01 has specialised in the design of spaces and strategic branding for companies, institutions and trademarks for 30 years. Accumulating all this experience working on architectural projects, ephemeral spaces, trade fair stands, museums and exhibitions, retail spaces, offices, and product and graphic design has allowed the team to develop a style that stands out not only for its elegant design but for application of sustainable strategies.
The pavilion created for FIRTUR, the international tourism trade fair held in Madrid recently, is inspired by the valuable architectural and cultural heritage of Spain’s Paradores Nacionales hotels. As the designers tell us, the “liveable” 3D design contains visual references to the work of Italian artist Eduardo Tresoldi, who creates installations recalling the neoclassical architecture of the Enlightenment.
The evanescent, vaporous structure of the stand was constructed out of light metal mesh reinforced with folds and moulding. To reduce architecture to its minimal material expression, the structure is reduced to a lightweight skeleton, stripped of its skins and materiality. Light is the material that gives form to this abstract, ethereal architecture.
As a construction made of metal mesh, it is ideal for reuse, an important factor in trade fairs, where we are increasingly seeing designs based on the philosophy of the circular economy in an effort to reduce the significant environmental impact of such temporary events. EQUIPO 01’s creation will be reused in the gardens of the Parador de León: the sixteenth-century Monastery and Hospital of San Marcos in León, in northwest Spain, one of the most important monuments of the Spanish Renaissance. Many weddings are held here, and the pavilion is intended to provide a setting for celebrations of this kind, planted with flowers and vines to create a place that changes with the seasons, a dynamic element full of life.
A temporary structure measuring 307 square metres is reinvented with a lasting identity to become a virtuous example of trade fair architecture. According to Jesús San Vicente, the company’s founder and creative director, who teaches at the Faculty of Architecture in Madrid and the Istituto Europeo di Design IED in Milan: “ Sustainability in the fair sector is to attend to the entire life cycle of the materials used. From its manufacture with raw materials that do not generate a carbon footprint, to its subsequent recycling or reuse. We must ensure that there is no waste of any kind and conceive a new vocabulary with traditional materials used in a contemporary way.”
The project has been awarded two FITUR 2022 prizes, the prize for best design and the special prize for sustainability .

Christiane Bürklein

Project: EQUIPO 01
Location: Madrid, Spain
Year: 2022
Images: Juan Rayos