The villages are empty and their rich vernacular heritage is in ruins. Our legacy is in danger of disappearing, and also their wisdom. On the other hand we live a special moment because we are aware of the limits of the planet: local materials and bio-construction are absolutely necessary. Now is the time to act: let's save the rural environment through the recovery of our collective memory and the sum of new visions and technologies.

Let’s work for the future, let’s work from the past

Spain: Comarca de La Vera ,Cáceres / Flatlands of La Mancha ,Cuenca / Marine of Mandeo, A Coruña

The rural territory is losing its roots, due to the processes of globalization, industrialization and rural to urban migration, as well as changes in the ways of life. The rural population decreases and ages. The same did the ancestral inheritance. This is common to all three sites, as it is a global problem. This change has been so rapid that the rural world has been unable to react.
So we put cement instead of lime, earth, stone or wood. But the future needs more sustainable alternatives. It is a challenge and an opportunity to understand and give coherence to life in rural settings. Each place is unique, that is why we come together from the desire to regenerate rural life through the recovery of architectural identity.

Revaluing heritage = valuing the region = valuing its people

We will facilitate and work with a group of about 10/15 residents of the territory, a multidisciplinary team, who will sign up for free and voluntary participation. We will call this team_ Activation Agents.

Our participants and group to reactivate the environment are the project planners, promoters and activists. They will be in charge of collecting all perspectives and testimonies from the past. Plan the intervention, find means, materials and mobilize all the people. Involving and inviting residents, family, friends and neighbors of their territory to the day of the action. To generate a day of collective participation where everyone contributes: with their hands, knowledge or visit to improve and restore their streets. They help us to get far-reaching effects in each location.

We propose an open process in a participatory workshop form, where we can mobilize people from very different fields:Team Reaviva. We will rely on social methodologies (open space, oasis methodology, dragon-dreaming) and our own experience in collective processes, generating spaces of trust for dialogue and creation.

The steps of the activity are:
1.Meeting and recognition. We connect with the participants (Activation Agents)their concerns, abilities, dreams, through creativity
2.Diagnosis and investigation. Collect:testimonies, materials, teachers..
3.Analysis and planning: opportunities, challenges and projection
4.Open actions, intervention, involvement and enthusiasm
5.Evaluation and projection
6.Popular gathering in the plaza_6months after the action:audiovisual documentation

Short term:
Recovering and embellish communal spaces, for your enjoyment
Join popular knowledge
Locating used indigenous materials
Document and disseminate the initiative to promote synergies
Strengthen the social fabric. Special emphasis will be made on the interaction between elderly and young people

In the medium term:
Deglobalize architecture to return to the identity that characterizes each town
Demand for more sustainable criteria by tenants in the rehabilitation of their homes.

Long-term:
Opening of new paths of research on other topics such as of ecology and sustainability (food, agriculture ...)
Consider the possibility of creating workshop schools

The proposal arises as a need to generate citizen interaction that generates instruments and tools, which allows to curb the risks and threats that traditional architecture presents today:
All this has led to consider that it is essential to initiate popular awareness actions that demand recommendations that guarantee their safeguarding.
In the past, people designed their houses, decided, in collaboration with experts but with their own ideas, because they clearly understood their needs and capabilities. This is now called popular architecture.

Generate a critical and proactive look to reinforce citizen participation towards the present situation and future interventions in their environment.

Because it is necessary, possible and extraordinarily beautiful: the connection with ancient architecture is essential for the health of the planet and of people.

We are women who from our professional beginnings have felt a special attraction towards the path of traditional construction from both a technical and ethical perspective, we feel we have enough power to awaken the people so that they love their architecture again, as well as the we love us and that this path of awareness opens the doors of interest and the desire to rebuild in a more creative, more artisanal, more humane way, opening a new sustainable economic and tourist path in the region.

1. Management and coordination - for 12 monts - 17000 €
2. Weaving nets development - 2000 €
3. Good practice data base development - 1500 €
4. Graphic memory and audiovisual document- 1750 €
5. Support and capacity building meetings: 5500 €
6. Possible ReLIVE campaign - 2750 €
7. Development in three locations - 9500 x 3 = 28500€
_ Facilitation: 2000
_ Training: 2025
_ Communiaction and dissemination plan: 1100
_ Permits and insurance: 350
_ Materials and equipment: 1300

Thank you very much for offering this service, but we will not be able to take advantage of it when delivering with so little margin