Unable to construct a balcony for his apartment legally, Santiago Cirugeda vandalized the building with spray paint, then requested a construction permit for scaffolding to allow him to remove the graffiti. After receiving permission, the scaffolding structure was modified to serve as a balcony. Its construction and use demonstrates an opportunistic and flexible planning strategy, suggesting how citizens may modify their environment in the face of prohibitions.
Santiago Cirugeda is an architect based in Seville who has proposed semi-legal strategies for housing and urban renovation under the name Recetas Urbanas, or “urban prescriptions,” since 1996. He inhabits gaps between laws, exploiting overlap and oversight to practice autonomous architecture.