HOY ENTREVISTAMOS A ALFARO-MANRIQUE ATELIER

The Alfaro-Manrique Atelier studio shares its multidisciplinary approach to contemporary architecture and design, highlighting its commitment to innovation and sustainability in an interview conducted by journalist Merche Romero.

With a markedly multidisciplinary character (architecture, interior and furniture design, urban planning, technical advice and comprehensive project management) and with almost 20 years of experience, this studio is today a benchmark in hospitality and flexible living. Gema Alfaro Simón and Emili Manrique Diaz have made it possible, directing a team made up of architects, designers and technicians and with the support of external collaborators specialized in the calculation of structures and installations. With their sights always set on impeccable execution, Gema and Emili harmonize professional talent, personalized attention, detail and respect for the environment in each intervention.

Throughout your career, you have carried out all types of projects, although your specialty is hotel design and technical consulting. What projects do you have underway at the moment?

At this time we continue to have projects in the hotel sector following and evolving the guidelines with which we have been working until now, but in the last two years we have begun to work on hybrid residential projects with the hospitality sector: a new typology of residential buildings called flex-living in which the common areas, the spaces for interaction between people, considerably expand their surface area and offer opportunities for the design of these new spaces. Currently, we have completed three projects of this nature in Madrid and we are designing 20 assets throughout the peninsula, including flexible living, coliving, etc. Really, we are immersed in everything that has to do with the different ways of living, whether for a day or a year.

How do you manage to offer the client, the user, the experience they want from architecture and design?

The first premise is research. In the study, this is one of the essential legs to identify the needs, the new ways of life and relationships between users that are then formalized in spaces and architectural and design narratives that are solvent and dependent on the product that is intended to be achieved. And the second is to ensure that each project has its own unique soul, which transforms into particular experiences.

We are living in a time of change and there is no doubt that we are in a new global scenario. How do you think this fact affects the hospitality sector?

The hospitality sector is expanding its limits, increasingly the characteristic methodologies of this sector are becoming embedded in society and in the ways of inhabiting the city and relating to the community. The mobility and liquid that characterized hospitality are increasingly present in the day-to-day life of our society.

Directly related to the new scenario we were alluding to is sustainability. What does this concept imply for Alfaro-Manrique Atelier?

The concept of sustainability is part of the narrative of our latest projects; sustainability as a way of being the individual in society, of caring for oneself and for the physical and social environment. It is a search for well-being that results in a more emotional design without abandoning the contemporary filter with which we approach projects.

Speaking of sustainability, as you know, for Matimex this is a key value, as is innovation. Both concepts are modeling the new spaces we inhabit at any time in life. From your perspective, what does innovation consist of and how do you apply it?

In the flexibility of spaces, we apply innovation for both present and future uses. We try to design spaces that adapt to multiple needs in the present but that survive regardless of the use they have at any given time. People's identity, their ways of appropriating space, are becoming more heterogeneous. Knowing how to dialogue with them through design is the challenge that innovation must address.

We cannot escape the power of globalization, but we can look for alternatives and allies to differentiate ourselves in some aspect. How would you define your professional relationship with Matimex?

Globalization can be a source of wealth, the problem arises when it is linked to the generic, to what has no identity. We firmly believe that this is the function of design: to constantly develop a narrative that is close to the people, the culture, and the identity of the place. For this, the skin, the coverings of these designed spaces are a primary tool and language to communicate, and companies that are references and leaders in solutions, with great aesthetic care, as is the case of Matimex, are essential.

Among the new technologies that are breaking into this new world order, artificial intelligence has emerged as, according to some voices, the greatest revolution in the history of humanity. Its impact will be extraordinary in many professional fields. What is your opinion on this? Do you already use artificial intelligence or do you intend to apply it to your work as architects and designers?

Absolutamente, tenemos intención y lo hacemos. Creemos que es una nueva herramienta para el diseñador que, en cierta manera, agudiza y optimiza las posibilidades de trabajar en profundidad. La inteligencia artificial ofrece y el diseñador dispone de más recursos para profundizar conceptualmente en el proyecto que desarrolla. Le temíamos más a las imágenes dispersas que a la inteligencia artificial. Es un camino que se abre que puede ser muy interesante para analizar y redefinir la función del diseñador.

Al comenzar esta entrevista hemos hablado de los proyectos que tenéis en marcha. Vayamos ahora del aquí y el ahora al pasado. De entre todos los proyectos ejecutados en estas dos décadas, ¿cuál sería el más destacado en vuestra opinión? ¿Existe alguno por el que sintáis un especial cariño?

No sabríamos decir un proyecto en particular, pero sí un hecho, que es haber podido trasladar la vocación por aplicar el diseño en el sector hospitality de carácter urbano al carácter vacacional. Por otra parte, como hecho innovador, nos parecen destacables los últimos proyectos en que nuestro conocimiento del sector hotelero se diluye en la cotidianeidad del residencial en las nuevas formas de vida.

Y, si hablamos de futuro, ¿Con qué proyecto soñáis?

Nos parecería interesante trabajar en proyectos de carácter hospitality con un grado muy alto de flexibilidad, con usos híbridos que potencien extremadamente la relación entre las personas y su privacidad, que puedan ocupar y desocupar el territorio cíclicamente. Vemos una alta carga de sostenibilidad en propuestas de este tipo tanto en su vinculación con el territorio como con la sociedad.