‘A Vila do Mañá’ emerges from the right to the city, as defended by Henri Lefebvre, so that the people who live in it have the right to enjoy it, to transform it and to reflect their way of understanding life in the community. From this point of view, how can we not include the right of children and adolescents to their city? For this reason, public space is considered a common space for learning and collective construction in which children and adolescents must also have a place.

‘A Vila do Maña’ works with three-dimensional elements, based on Froebel’s “third gift”.
In architecture we have Froebel as a reference, through Frank Lloyd Wrigth who was educated with this method. It is a system based on the creativity and intuition of the child through direct experience, play and nature. It creates a pedagogical resource based on ‘gifts’ and ‘occupations’. The ‘gifts’ are pedagogical materials that do not change, but are transformed; the ‘occupations’ are activities in which children play by transforming the objects they manipulate. The ‘gifts’ are precursors of today’s building blocks.

The aim of ‘A Vila da Mañá’ is to change the model of town or city, we believe that another one can be possible. This is achieved through the protagonist participation of local children and adolescents who, by working with fundamental concepts through tactical urban planning actions, become active citizens capable of transforming their spaces.

In this case it works with perception, that of the body itself and the environment that surrounds them. Understanding how they perceive their town, we try to provoke in girls, boys, and teenagers a new vision of everyday spaces, seeking to break with the familiar and so that they can see the same places with different eyes.

“Those who have designed, administered and governed them have done so without completing those other dimensions (making one-dimensional cities based on production) and that the definitions of the RAE ignore, and the principle of action has prevailed over their understanding of reality. These cities conceive public space as the space that allows us to get to work from home, without asking if for some the street is synonymous with relationship and encounter and for others it entails exposure and risk”

Izaskun Chinchilla