In the quiet, sun-dappled streets of Logroño, Spain, something remarkable has once again stirred the built environment into conversation. Concéntrico 2025, the celebrated festival of architecture and design, opened its latest edition with 24 urban interventions, each one like a whispered idea delicately grafted into the public realm. This isn’t a spectacle in the traditional sense — there are no glass towers being unveiled or hyper-scale commercial builds drawing applause. Instead, this is where temporary architecture meets permanence of thought, where plywood and scaffolding create not just shade and structure, but wonder, warmth, and reflection.
As you walk through the city during the festival, the contrast between the classical fabric of Logroño and these architectural insertions becomes the language of a different kind of construction — one focused not on scale or permanence, but on intent. These interventions are crafted with the same rigor as a long-term build: high-performance materials, meticulous detailing, site-specific sensitivity, and an awareness of how buildings — even temporary ones — affect everything from pedestrian flow to microclimate and emotional response. That delicate balance between building envelope design and public accessibility is what gives these small structures such gravity.
One particular intervention drew attention near the Plaza del Mercado. It wasn’t flashy. Made from locally sourced timber and textiles dyed in natural hues, it offered shade and acoustical softening in an otherwise noisy crosswalk. But for Carmen, a nearby café owner, it changed the rhythm of her day. “People linger more now,” she said with a soft smile, motioning to the bench that wraps around the structure. “Even the way the light filters through the slats — it makes people slow down.” That kind of feedback would make any sustainable construction consultant lean forward. It speaks volumes about bioclimatic strategies, thermal comfort in urban design, and the emotional efficacy of ephemeral architecture.
This edition of Concéntrico has not only deepened its relationship with Logroño’s urban DNA, but it has also sharpened the discourse around modular construction and prefabrication in civic spaces. A structure along Calle Portales explored the reuse of construction debris, integrating crushed concrete panels into a modular system that could be rebuilt elsewhere. The structural engineering team behind it collaborated with local builders to demonstrate how low-carbon materials can become poetic rather than purely pragmatic. That moment when a child traced his finger along the rough surface of recycled aggregate, curiously asking his father if it used to be a road, speaks to the educational potential embedded in construction materials. There is something profoundly human in understanding where a wall comes from.
For those in the construction industry, Concéntrico functions almost like a laboratory under open sky. There’s testing — of spans, of cantilevers, of material weathering — but more than that, there’s the challenge of engagement. How do you design a canopy, pavilion, or ramp that changes not just how people move, but how they feel? In one intervention behind the Church of Santiago el Real, a series of gently sloping planes created a sculptural playground of sorts. Children darted across surfaces meant to represent waves, while older visitors watched from stepped platforms. It could’ve been a study in timber joinery and soil anchoring, but to the people using it, it was simply joy. That’s the kind of “user experience” no digital rendering can quite predict.
There’s increasing relevance, too, in how Concéntrico’s designs echo the goals of smart urban planning. Many of these temporary installations harness passive solar design principles, strategic ventilation paths, and rainwater capture systems — not because they must, but because they can. This experimentation reflects a growing shift in construction trends where sustainability isn’t a check-box item, but a baseline assumption. A pop-up reading nook constructed from insulated straw panels not only demonstrated vernacular architecture’s relevance in the 21st century, but also served as a touchstone for circular construction practices. Nearby, architecture students from Madrid sat on cardboard stools under a tensile canopy, sketching elevation details with the kind of attentiveness that only comes from seeing ideas turned into reality.
And yet, for all its innovation, the festival remains deeply personal. There’s something in the way these projects nestle themselves into forgotten corners of the city, sometimes filling voids left by previous demolitions, other times clashing — beautifully — with surrounding historical facades. One such project framed a slice of sky between two ancient buildings, with a lightweight steel structure that cast rhythmic shadows on the stone below. It was there that an elderly man sat each morning reading his newspaper, unbothered by tourists or photographers. “This light,” he told a passerby, “reminds me of the sea.” It’s hard to draw a more intimate line between architecture and memory than that.
Beyond the structures themselves, the construction process of these interventions is where many of the festival's lessons are born. Logistics in heritage-sensitive environments demand innovative staging and respectful installation. Builders work within tight spatial confines, often without the machinery they would typically rely on. That challenge fosters craftsmanship. Teams have to solve problems on-site using lightweight materials, rapid-set connections, and clever assembly sequences. The energy is closer to set design or exhibition building than it is to conventional sitework, but the underlying skills — load distribution, anchor testing, safety planning — remain the same.
Some construction professionals attending the festival quietly acknowledge that these small structures often demonstrate better interdisciplinary collaboration than larger projects. Architects, fabricators, and city officials communicate in real time, adjusting designs based on tactile encounters with the space. It’s refreshing, one civil engineer admitted, to see structures where the construction drawing is still evolving on-site, pencils and laptops side by side. There’s a humility in that process that larger developments often lose in the tangle of procurement chains and regulatory burden.
And as night falls, the city transforms again. Temporary lighting elements embedded in a few of the installations come alive, casting long shadows and inviting quiet nighttime exploration. A materials consultant visiting from Zurich lingered under one such installation, fascinated by the phosphorescent concrete tiles. They were charged by solar power during the day and now offered a soft glow. “We talk about smart materials all the time,” she said, “but this is something you feel first, and then think about.” That sentiment captures so much of what Concéntrico builds — not merely walls or roofs, but moments.
In a world often obsessed with permanence and ROI, Logroño’s festival reminds us that some of the most resonant architectural experiences are temporary, fragile, and personal. You won’t find high-speed elevators or LEED Platinum certifications here. But you will find design build projects that hinge on community engagement, thermal mass optimization, material lifecycle awareness, and — most importantly — a belief that construction is as much about emotion as it is about execution 🛠️