Ama Pura, a project by IED Madrid graduate Andrea Chavarría, awarded by the Global Creative Graduate Showcase from Arts Thread

The Global Creative Graduate Showcase is a call open to recently graduated design students from all over the world, with almost 5,200 candidatures from more than 100 countries in this call. The Istituto Europeo di Design, IED Madrid presented 12 candidatures, of which seven reached the final and two of them have been awarded in the categories of interior design and product design: Ama Pura by Andrea Chavarría and Waste Design Challenge by Juan Pablo Galarza, two projects with a clear sustainable, circular and social focus. These are the only two projects by students trained in design in Spain that have won in this 2024 edition.

Ama Pura a project focused on design as therapy

Amapura is a project located in Central America, Costa Rica, specifically in the southern coastal area called the Central Pacific Region, focusing on rural villages with a shortage of mental health services, starting in Palo Seco as a pilot centre. The project focuses on creating spaces dedicated to design as therapy, encouraging creativity and personal expression to improve the mental health of Generation Z and all residents in rural areas of Costa Rica.

Taking as a reference for the project the rural community of Palo Seco, Puntarenas, in the Central Pacific Region of Costa Rica, this project addresses the scarcity of mental health services and seeks their democratisation through self-construction and the creative use of spaces, establishing a replicable model in other rural communities.

The local inhabitants themselves, of all age groups, actively participate in the construction of these spaces using local materials and techniques, fostering a sense of community and belonging and allowing the inhabitants to shape their space and then benefit from its use. A living space in permanent change.

The people of each locality, through collaboration and collective intelligence, contribute to the design of these spaces, generating an interconnected network that facilitates mobility between nearby towns, encourages the exchange of knowledge and boosts the joint development of these interrelated communities. Spaces that, through their different construction techniques , acquire a unique identity, always working with local materials and techniques that are easy to learn and build by the locals themselves.

While the centres in the different localities will share common goals of promoting emotional well-being and personal exploration, each will be distinguished by the unique characteristics that local people incorporate into their design, reflecting the diversity and uniqueness of each community.

Proposed spaces

A single-storey, rectangular brick space with perforated walls to facilitate the indoor-outdoor connection.

A space with a bamboo structure, with a type of floorboard as a base, a space with an organic shape and a double skin, being used for learning bamboo elements, as well as elements made of wicker.

A wooden, two-storey, rectangular space, its openings allow natural light to enter for the plants, creating a comfortable working environment in connection with nature. It is used for gardening classes on the upper floor and cabinetmaking on the lower floor.

The general space, built with adobe and palm, configures an organically shaped corridor that vertebrates the different spaces. This open environment will bring together activities such as photography and painting, generating an outdoor space in contact with nature and taking advantage of it to create a better learning and wellbeing environment.

Project: Amapura.
Design: Andrea Chavarría
Realised: 20024.
School of Design: IED Madrid.
Text: Andrea Chavarría.
Images and video: Andrea Chavarría, realizados con IA.

Andrea Chavarría Alfaro

A native of Costa Rica, she was captivated by sensory experiences and how design is perceived through empathy from an early age.
She studied Interior Design in San José, Costa Rica. She has brilliantly completed the Degree of Higher Artistic Education in Interior Design at IED Madrid. He won 3rd Prize in the 4th edition of the Antalia Decora 2023 awards.

Istituto Europeo di Design

IED is the largest international network of educational institutions in the field of Design with branches in Madrid, Milan, Cagliari, Florence, Rome, Turin, Como, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Barcelona and Bilbao. It is the largest Higher Education Network in the creative field that has maintained since 1966 a global perspective and a profoundly Italian cultural matrix.

Its training experience has changed over time, but it is still based on a simple and effective model: it combines theory with practice and the knowledge provided in the classroom by professionals from the world of work. It is an inclusive and interdisciplinary school that uses design as a universal language for change.

IED has agreements with universities and academies and is a member of major international academic networks such as Cumulus, Elia, WDO.

Sources: IED Madrid, Andrea Chavarría y Arts Thread.

Project by Andrea Chavarría