The children's workshop at the ICO Museum on the exhibition The architect is present

He ICO Museum of Madrid presents the exhibition until May 18 The Architect is Present. The space dedicated to the event is not only to exhibit materials, images and videos but there is also a prominent place in the exhibition in which an architecture studio works with students. The objective is that they work up to five studies, consecutively, with Spanish students who can also win a scholarship to work. We have gone to conduct a children's workshop organized by Talk in art and the truth is that when he saw the architecture studio, it looked like Wayra.

The objective of the architecture studios It is to show students the work done in countries on five continents and specifically teach best practices to Spanish architects. The Museum serves as a school in which it shows how the needs of its inhabitants have been integrated with the architecture and for this purpose nature materials and others from recycling have been used. The challenge is to build sustainable buildings for people without resources, built by inhabitants without knowledge and ensure their maintenance over time. The five studies chosen are: Diébédo Francis Kéré, TYIN Tegnestue Architects, Anupama Kundoo, Solano Benitez Y Anna Heringer. By the time we did the workshop, the exhibition had worked only with Keré and they were already in Tyin's second week.

In the images that illustrate the article you can see, first of all Nacho and in the background Elena, from Talk in art, which maintain a rhythm in their explanations that require the participation of children and adults during the workshop.

Their preparation for the talk and the subsequent workshop is outstanding and they are always very aware that all children participate and entertain themselves while they learn. From this exhibition we take two lessons, one that is very important that in these countries their citizens are taught to solve their own problems and two, that they will need more architects to ensure that what is built can be maintained and grow with new proposals .

That's why it's good that 75 Spanish architecture students they will receive these teachings spread over five two-week workshops and of those who only five of them will be chosen by the different international studies. These students will be awarded scholarships by the ICO Foundation with a period of three months of training in their respective countries and they will work with them on a sustainable architecture project.

The sample of the ICO Museum does not start from a usual exhibition concept and the project will grow as time progresses until it can be seen completely after the participation of the five architecture studios.

In the images you can see lattices, through which the wind passes cooling rooms and generating acoustic and visual rhythms of great interest as Santiago Auserón has in his book The Lost Rhythm. Also maps of how it can be built using materials that are obtained from nature, because there is no money to pay neither to the builder, nor to the supplier, nor to the workers, and a part of the workspace in which the space prevails, the walls for writing and hanging post-it and the laptops on the tables connected to the wifi network.

I leave for the end the presentation of the final project made by my daughter Maria. About the bird house provided by Talk in art We chose a decoration project with natural and recycled materials and we also gave it a utility when we take it home.

Congratulations to Talk in Art because it has been one of the best exhibitions I've been to, and I've been to many, involving children and especially teaching them live how students work with real projects and ideas that they also share. I think that for this generation of children it is one of the ways in which they will work in the future, each time we will have fewer companies, although some will be very large and very global, less officials, because we tend to automation and specialization and because knowledge and experience have to be necessarily exportable to help improve other countries while empowering ours.