Reclaiming the urban space

Urban spaces often reveal their greatest potential when existing functions are reimagined. In Logroño, the capital of Spain’s La Rioja region, a disused roundabout once dominated by traffic has been transformed into a place for gathering, rest and collective wellbeing. Round About Baths, the temporary installation designed by Leopold Banchini for Concéntrico 2025, reinterprets an overlooked fragment of the city as a new form of public infrastructure. The project has been selected among the 25 proposals shortlisted for the 2026 European Prize for Urban Public Space, organised by the Centre for Contemporary Culture of Barcelona (CCCB). Chosen from 381 submissions from 38 countries, the selection highlights projects that explore new ways of creating, recovering and transforming shared urban environments. The five finalists will be announced on 9 September.

Developed around a disused fountain previously enclosed by traffic, Round About Baths redefined the perception of the site. What was once an overlooked fragment of the city has become a temporary public bath and climate shelter – a place designed not for movement, but for pause, interaction and collective experience. The installation included changing rooms, steam rooms and cold-water basins, creating an intimate yet communal environment in the heart of the city. Through organised sessions during the festival, visitors were invited to experience public space from a different perspective, where water, the body and social interaction became central elements. The project recalls the historical role of nineteenth-century public baths as civic infrastructures connected to hygiene, health and social wellbeing. At a time when many collective spaces are increasingly replaced by private and commercial models, Banchini’s intervention proposes a renewed idea of the city as a place of shared care.

Beyond its programme, Round About Baths questions the conventional use of urban spaces designed primarily around mobility. By reclaiming a traffic-oriented infrastructure, the project demonstrates how neglected areas can become opportunities for new forms of urban life. Its architectural language reinforces this approach. Built with reusable materials, the structure consists of a regular timber frame clad in untreated panels, conceived to have a second life after the festival. The temporary nature of the installation becomes not a limitation, but a tool for experimentation and reflection on more sustainable models of construction. The recognition by the European Prize for Urban Public Space confirms the relevance of projects that challenge traditional definitions of public space. More than a temporary intervention, Round About Baths offers a vision of the city as an evolving environment – one where architecture can transform overlooked places into spaces for connection, wellbeing and collective imagination.