I + Docenario is an Agriculture Research and Innovation Center aiming to improve the area’s agricultural sector by making the most of Extremadura’s landscape. By remodeling the existing agricultural practices, it will revive and strengthen this productive sector, increasing its efficiency.
The infrastructure will be cohesive and dynamic, serving as a new focal point for the town.
Moreover, the project directly addresses the other main problems affecting the Autonomous Community of Extremadura—the emigration of young people and the high unemployment rate.
The project connects the main public spaces in the town with the agricultural landscape, further unifying the urban with the rural. The new building will be a renovation of the old, isolated educational center, giving it a new lease of life in accordance with the project’s ultimate goal of unifying and modernizing the town. At the top of the building will be a new research space, designed to promote collaboration and the dissemination of agricultural knowledge.
The town is surrounded by two vegetable gardens, known as “the lungs”. This land previously belonged to local homeowners, who used it to cultivate their own produce, yet many fields are now abandoned due to population decline. I + Docenario revitalizes this land by using it as a place to test crops. The fact that the new building has direct access to these fields exemplifies the strong connection between the infrastructure and the landscape.
