The Herriko Plaza intervention in Mallabia pursues an update of its central public space, understanding its importance as the backbone of the municipality's social life.

Located in the Basque Country, Spain, Mallabia presents a typical rural Basque implantation with a small settlement around the Church, the Town Hall and the square. The rest of the municipality settles within a large territory, where the inhabitants are concentrated on small clusters.

The project, designed and conducted by Bilbao-based office AZAB, does not seek the creation of a new space, but to recover the special significance of this emblematic site.

For AZAB “spaces emerge from their referential qualities, traditions, landscapes or memory to adopt a global aesthetic dominated by technology and image”

For this, they proposed the introduction of a series of devices that update the square, expanding the possibilities of its use to become a multi-generational space.

For the authors, “architecture recovers traditional spaces by updating their uses and generating symbolic places that facilitate the identification of the inhabitants with their context”.

Thus, the project focuses on the construction of a covered space, responding to the demand raised by the public, which refers to the climatology of the area.

They proposed to cover the external auditorium of the Plaza Elizalde.

This reform aims to convert the auditorium into an area with leisure alternatives for all ages, for which the versatility of usage and the ability to host different activities are key purposes.

The new distribution of functions of the leisure area is ordered by zones with different but connected spaces that all multiply the possibilities of the old auditorium generating a wide variety of functions.

The upper zone is intended for health and sports with priority to gymnastics for the elderly.

For example, the bleachers include a climbing wall and a slope, creating a dynamic space also for children.

The bleachers have a double function: on the one hand, to improve their comfort and become a resting area for infants, and on the other to become the seating for a public for future events.