The slogan "Stay Home" has been guiding people throughout the past year, making us rediscover our home as a place of refuge, shelter, and protection. Within this new status quo, much has been discussed about the important role played by architecture and interior design in improving both the physical and mental wellbeing of its inhabitants.

From the most complex to the most simple, we have been revisiting various design strategies in search of a sense of comfort and seclusion in our homes. Although we are living in the most technological age of all, we find ourselves drawn to the most fundamental elements, as if returning to our origins.

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We live in a tangled web of flows – of capital, information, technology, images, structures, in constant momentum dominating all aspects of our lives. The large-scale road infrastructures shown here are products of this powerful desire for movement, which for many years was also synonymous with development, as portrayed by the famous Goethean character Faust in his endless quest for a (false) sense of progress.

From these tangles of concrete and steel, at multiple levels and in different directions, emerges a geometrically organized chaos that tears the urban fabrics in a relentless effort to prioritize the flows with the fewest obstacles and the highest capacity possible.

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Memento mori is an ancient Latin expression that means "remember that you are mortal." The Roman people used it not to represent a fatalistic approach to death but rather as a way of valuing life.

A few centuries later, as we arrive at our current context and the world reaches the terrifying figure of 2 million deaths as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, memento mori is more relevant than ever.

When we talk about cities or their lesser variations – villages, towns, communities –, we are used to evoking stereotyped scenarios that relate to streets, cars, buildings, and we often end up forgetting that there are plenty of other surprisingly unique patterns.

Many people study the cities and wonder about the exact moment when they were invented, given that they are open, unfinished works in progress. Some assume that their origin was due to the need for protection, which caused humans to quit nomadic lifestyles and settle as groups in a specific land to increase their chances of survival.  

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In his book Breve Historia del Urbanismo (Brief History of Urbanism), Fernando Chueca Goitia states that the medieval city appeared at the beginning of the 11th century and flourished only between the 12th and 13th centuries. According to the author, this growth was closely linked to the development of commerce that allowed permanent occupations, resulting in a city no longer composed mainly of travelers. In other words, the bourgeoisie was formed thanks to the most diverse activities - craftsmen, tradesmen, blacksmiths, longshoremen - which stimulated the development of the medieval city.