Geofront
Geographic Strategic Plan for Frontier Territories

category:design, architecture, cartography
awards: 1st Prize YTAA 2016 YoungTalent Architecture Award, 1st Prize Eduardo Torroja Ingeniería y Arquitectura 2017, 2nd Prize Cátedra HNA, 1st Prize PFC Strikes, Archiprix Participant Favourite featured in: Future Architecture Platform 2018 Conference, AV Proyectos No.75 exhibited in: “El Borde de una Herida” at Centro Centro Madrid and CDAN Fundación Beulas Huesca
February 2016 | ETSA Madrid

︎ Almanac (Geofront design code)

«Geofront swims between a floating landscape, architecture, infrastructure engineering and a conflict in which geopolitical and social issues are confronted […] design as a political tool and a spatial practice within a new emergent socio-political space»

—︎ YTAA Jury 2016

Borders are thick lines of negotiated boundaries and territories that demarcate the belonging and the definition of “place”. Those qualities are emphasized on our European borders, like the water frontier between Algeciras and Gibraltar, settled on 1715, during the Treaty of Utrecht when Spain transferred the rock to Great Britain. This will be the chosen place where the The Neutral State of the Strait of Gibraltar (hereinafter called N.S.S.G) will be established: a virtual construction made for a future shared sovereignty between the facing nation

«The boundary is not a spatial fact with sociological consequences, but a sociological fact that forms itself spatially»

—︎ Georg Simmel

The constituent territories of this new state will be known as Topos and will be sketched as geographic canvases. They will intend to be “virgin” territories and they will be programmed as self-sufficient organisms in the sea. The Topos of the N.S.S.G will invade the borderline turning it into a valuable strip, not just a boundary.

The first Topos to be launched will host the Maritime Port Customs of the N.S.S.G as an initial strategy to create a solid economic foundation at the birth of the human settlement. The Alborán Sea will not only lead the anatomy of this Topos in terms of their energetic capabilities; also, it will provide a perfect environment to test the behaviour of this “liquid” society right from its start.

GeoFront is the Strategic Development Plan for the construction of these new territories at high seas. This plan will not at all specify a unidirectional design, but instead it will define the rules and procedures to be considered for an architectural and infrastructural device through time. Therefore, the documents of this project are charts, maps and plans that will guide the methodological implementation of this territorial operation. In short, GeoFront is the code to design for a virtual society seizing the not yet conceived technologies of the future.

Ref: 1 M/S Balao circa 1973. Iain Lovie Collection. Image from “Offshore Democracy: Launch and landfall of a socio-technical experiment”. Javier Lezaun 2 City Plus. OMA3 Landscape as Infrastructure. Landscape Journal, vol. 28. Pierre Bélanger 4 Geologics: Geography, Information, Architecture. Vicente Guallart 5 The New Geographic Landscape. Landscape Architecture Frontiers, vol. 1. Pierre Bélanger 6 WaterWorld. Kevin Costner 7 Fadaiat: Libertad de Movimiento-Libertad de Conocimiento. Colectivo Editorial 8 Expo’ 75 Okinawa, Japan 9 Project Heracles: 172 Ideas for an Euroafrican Connection. Domus 949 10 Aircraft Carrier City in Landscape, 1964. Hans Hollein 11 Island. Aldous Huxley 12 La Société du spectacle, Guy Debord 13 Utopia. Thomas More

Geofront

AlmanacExorcity

YTAA ExhibitionEx·institutionalCovarrubias ConfessionsTransposing Houses

Almanac
Exorcity

YTAA Exhibition
Ex·institutional
Covarrubias Confessions
Transposing Houses