Outdoor boxing gym in Lisbon performs as urban acupuncture
As part of the Lisbon Triennale 2019, Mexican architecture studio Diseño Espacial, led by Carlos Ortega Arámburo and Daniel de León Languré, has worked with an outer city community to design and build an outdoor boxing gym to promote community health and happiness
A gaggle of excited children have descended onto a simple structure made of metal pipes, a new addition to their neighbourhood in Olaias, north Lisbon. Boxing gloves have been distributed and a handful of parents stand near by, as older children teach the younger ones techniques on the hanging bags. Plastic chairs and tables have been assembled, music plays and pots of stew are bubbling.
People are out to welcome a new permanent boxing gym, designed by Mexican studio Diseño Espacial and commissioned by the Lisbon Triennale as one of the eight ‘Associated Projects’ happening across the city. The boxing gym addresses the many of the central themes of the Triennale, particularly the theme of main curator Eric Lapierre’s exhibition ‘Economy of means’.
Yet the project didn’t start in Lisbon, it started in Diseño Espacial’s home town of Mexico City, where architect Daniel de León Languré started noticing the resourcefulness of local boxers who were setting up boxing gyms using minimal resources – and becoming world champions. Inspired by the use of salvaged materials such as tyres, metal poles and blankets of the gyms, he started researching the sport further. He became aware of the positive benefits of these gyms on young people’s physical and mental health and the knock-on effect on the communities.
With Aldo van Eyck’s Seventeen Playgrounds and Isamu Noguchi’s playscapes in mind, Diseño Espacial started thinking about how they could combine ideas into a project for Mexico City that could be an ‘instrument for civic activation in precarious urban areas’. De León Languré calls it ‘urban acupuncture’ – a small intervention designed to contribute to the social health of the city.
Two years and three boxing gyms in Mexico City later, and the Caixa’s de Boxe (Boxing Boxes) project has opened in Lisbon, marking the first international version of the project. After plenty of mediations and conversations, the Mexico City team paired up with local studio Ensaios e Diálogos Associação (EDA), who introduced them to the Associação de Moradores de Portugal Novo, a neighbours’ association for the Barrio Portugal Novo, a post-revolutionary housing estate built in 1974. The estate was built by a self-managed co-operative and considered ‘almost illegal’ and therefore ignored by the state for many years, lacking any investment into the communal spaces. Boxing Boxes was the first public intervention in the neighbourhood for three decades
While the work entailed hours of research to identify possible sites (using a tool that Starbuck’s uses to find coffee shop locations) and meetings with people at all layers of the process from the Triennale, the city, and community leaders, the most useful tool was ‘willingness’ says de León Languré – being open-minded, and not thinking in a ‘top-down’ way at any level. It was a process of constant mediation, he says.
The pre-fabricated structure designed by Diseño Espacial and made of reclaimed metal pipes was assembled on site with the community. ‘Children now have a place to be children, before it was very limited. Everyone does everything outside and now there is more of a natural meeting place.’
INFORMATION
Wallpaper* Newsletter
Receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories from around the world direct to your inbox.
Harriet Thorpe is a writer, journalist and editor covering architecture, design and culture, with particular interest in sustainability, 20th-century architecture and community. After studying History of Art at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and Journalism at City University in London, she developed her interest in architecture working at Wallpaper* magazine and today contributes to Wallpaper*, The World of Interiors and Icon magazine, amongst other titles. She is author of The Sustainable City (2022, Hoxton Mini Press), a book about sustainable architecture in London, and the Modern Cambridge Map (2023, Blue Crow Media), a map of 20th-century architecture in Cambridge, the city where she grew up.
-
The McLaren W1 is the latest in the sports car maker's tech-saturated Ultimate Series
First F1, then P1 and now W1, McLaren Automotive reveals its latest limited-edition supercar to the world, a £2m concoction of hybrid power and active aero that is, unsurprisingly, already sold out
By Jonathan Bell Published
-
Paul Rudolph at The Met: ‘from Christmas lights to megastructures’
‘Materialized Space: The Architecture of Paul Rudolph’ opens at the Met in New York, exploring the modernist master's work through a feast of an exhibition
By Stephanie Murg Published
-
‘London: Lost Interiors’ gathers unseen imagery of some of the capital’s most spectacular homes
This new monograph is a fascinating foray into the interior life of London, charting changing tastes, emerging styles and the shifting social history of grand houses in the heart of a fast-changing city
By Jonathan Bell Published
-
Gulbenkian Foundation's new art centre by Kengo Kuma is light and inviting
Lisbon's Gulbenkian Foundation reveals its redesign and new contemporary art museum, Centro de Arte Moderna (CAM), by Kengo Kuma with landscape architects VDLA
By Amah-Rose Mcknight Abrams Published
-
An Oaxacan retreat offers a new take on the Mexican region's architecture
This Oaxacan retreat, Casa Caimán by Mexican practice Bloqe Arquitectura, is a dreamy beachside complex on the Pacific coast
By Léa Teuscher Published
-
Take a plunge at Brandílera House on the Mexican Pacific Coast
Brandílera House by Manuel Cervantes Estudio is a Mexican Pacific Coast retreat making the most of its views and green site
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
Step inside Quinto Sol house, a verdant oasis in Mexico's Pacific Coast
Quinto Sol house by architect Cristina Grappin blends indoors and outdoors in a masterful architectural composition in the Mexican countryside
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
Lucha Libre and modernist architecture meet in Mexican short film ‘El Luchador’
‘El Luchador’ blends Lucha Libre and architecture, in a Mexican short film set in Agustín Hernández Navarro's modernist home Casa Praxis in Mexico City
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
Mexico’s Amelia Tulum is where ‘the architecture becomes part of the jungle’
Amelia Tulum by Sordo Madaleno combines a human-centred approach and lots of greenery to craft a Mexican residential community like no other
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
Scenic Garden offers architectural pavilions and a new green lung for Mexico City
Scenic Garden, designed by Michan Architecture and a team of collaborators, adds green infrastructure to Mexico City's bustling urban experience
By Ellie Stathaki Published
-
A Cancun retreat by Mexico’s Vieyra Estudio takes inspiration ‘from the ocean’
Casa Nube, a new Cancun retreat by Vieyra Estudio, merges sea, style and sustainability in a private residence defined by a series of pools and terraces
By Léa Teuscher Published