Architecture and urban planning as living systems
What changes when architecture and urban planning are no longer understood as a collection of objects and plots, but begin to be read as living systems? In this conversation with Urbiq, Iñaki Alonso proposes broadening our perspective: considering social and environmental impacts alongside economic viability; reclaiming shared space; and designing both the physical framework and the relationships that bring it to life.
Broadening our perspective: from the triple bottom line to a systemic approach
Alonso traces the origins of his approach to the triple bottom line: assessing the economic, social and environmental dimensions simultaneously. This may sound straightforward, but it changes the starting question. A building or urban intervention is not acceptable simply because its figures add up; its effects on people and the environment must also be considered.
In his explanation, the triple bottom line is a gateway to a broader perspective: understanding the world as a system. Whereas a reductionist paradigm fragments reality to analyse each part separately, a systemic approach seeks to recover relationships and an understanding of the whole. Alonso acknowledges the historical value of scientific analysis, but also points to its limitations when specialisation causes us to lose sight of the bigger picture.
This loss of an overall perspective becomes particularly apparent when problems overlap: climate change, resource extraction, energy, biodiversity and health. These are not independent crises and can therefore hardly be addressed through isolated responses. Architecture and urban planning must broaden the equation and work with variables that have, until now, been left out of decisions or proved difficult to measure.
From the fragmented city to the relational city
The urban implications of this idea challenge the logic of functional separation. Alonso uses the form of the plan as a metaphor for change: moving from strictly subdivided, gridded territory towards a more organic structure capable of revealing connections. Twentieth-century urban planning separated uses and functions—living here, working there, shopping elsewhere—and relied on the car to connect the pieces.
A systemic approach points in another direction: a compact, heterogeneous and diverse city where activities can coexist and proximity reduces dependence on compulsory journeys. Alonso connects this shift with approaches such as the fifteen-minute city, decentralisation and mixed uses. The aim is not to add another label, but to move from a city conceived in terms of zones to one understood through relationships.
The practical consequence is significant: urban quality depends not only on each individual component, but also on what happens between them. Intermediate spaces, transitions, ground floors, routes and the ways in which uses mix cease to be residual elements of the project and become its central material.
Reclaiming the “we”: shared space as social infrastructure
One of the clearest themes of the conversation is the recovery of shared space. Alonso describes how maximising and monetising private space gradually reduced the shared areas within buildings. Entrance halls, corridors and roofs were restricted to circulation functions or regulatory minimums, without any real capacity to sustain relationships.
"We have ended up with buildings that have become warehouses for people, but have not encouraged relationships between them." — Iñaki Alonso
Between the “I” of the private sphere and the “everyone” of public space and the environment, Alonso places a “we” that architecture must rebuild. This “we” is the community: the network of trust, care and mutual support that enables people to face difficulties collectively and that, in many villages and historical building types, had a clear spatial framework.
The response is not simply to increase the square metres of communal space. It is to give those spaces purpose and the conditions for use: a shared roof terrace, places to spend time along circulation routes, a ground floor for children or a food-buying group, or spaces that can accommodate a cultural activity, a meeting or an afternoon of play. These are settings in which neighbourly relationships can become more than incidental.
Alonso connects this capacity with a culture of care and with mental health. Loneliness, he reminds us, does not affect only older people. If the built environment can facilitate connections and reduce isolation, architecture ceases to be a neutral object and becomes a tool for addressing a specific social problem. Entrepatios Las Carolinas appears in the interview as the first laboratory for this research, which was later taken into projects such as Pirita, Tomás Bretón, Talco and vibio Higuera.
Hardware is not enough: designing the community’s software
"We talk a lot about the hardware, which is the building, but the most important thing here is to build the software. [...] The software is the people and the relationships built between them." — Iñaki Alonso
The distinction between hardware and software prevents innovation from being reduced to a formal solution. The hardware can incorporate biodiversity, generate energy, treat water through biological processes or store carbon in timber structures. But a building only fully behaves as a living system when people activate, manage and adapt it.
For this reason, support does not necessarily end when construction is complete. Alonso explains that the community must gain autonomy rather than dependency. The task is to equip it with knowledge and tools: methods for organising meetings, initiating group activities, sharing learning and resolving conflicts. Monitoring and support remain available, but the aim is for the community itself to become empowered.
The logic of residents’ meetings changes too. Instead of meeting once a year solely to discuss problems, the community can meet several times to propose activities and keep the building alive. This organisational dimension is as much a part of the project as its energy systems or building envelope.
From building to neighbourhood: nested communities
The next scale is not reached simply by making the building larger. Alonso speaks of nested communities: groups capable of maintaining their identity while connecting within a larger ecosystem. Around Las Carolinas in Madrid, he describes actions that already extend beyond the plot: meetings with neighbours, discussions about pavements and public space, opening the organic food-buying group to the neighbourhood, shared celebrations and an ambition to connect new communities on nearby sites.
Increasing the scale creates opportunities that an isolated building cannot address on its own: energy communities, shared water management, consumer networks and cultural facilities. The conversation also acknowledges shortcomings. In a neighbourhood with little ground-floor activity, a food-buying group does not replace the need for small shops, just as proximity to a large green area does not remove the value of cultural spaces.
This interpretation avoids idealising the commons. Some contributions can be quantified and translated into savings or efficiency; others are difficult to measure, even though their value in everyday life is evident. Scaling up requires identifying both types of benefit and understanding which relationships are strengthened at each level.
Rural regeneration: arriving ready to listen, rather than as strangers
The interview then takes this logic to vibio Higuera, in Higuera de las Dueñas, Ávila. The change of context introduces a tension that Alonso does not conceal: having more land allows a more open layout and a close relationship with nature, but can also lead to more dispersed development, raising questions about sustainability.
The project reorganises the relationship between the private, the shared and the public. Homes retain a private use, while plots, squares, shelters and communal buildings are conceived for shared use. The biodiversity intervention makes the difference: Alonso presents it as closer to planting a forest with houses than delivering a conventional housing development. In the conversation, he refers to plans to plant around 400 trees.
However, regenerating a rural setting does not mean establishing a self-sufficient community disconnected from the municipality. Alonso insists on avoiding both a ghetto and the arrival of a group perceived as outsiders. He therefore describes a process of listening to residents, local government and associations: sharing what local people value about their village, why new families want to live there and what future they can imagine together. Consensus does not eliminate all resistance, but creates a framework for understanding fears, expectations and potential synergies.
Permanent residence is a central condition here. At the time of the interview, Alonso noted that 35 families were already involved in the project and that the aim was to bring together 60 primary residences. The intention was not to create a second-home development, but a stable population able to participate in Higuera’s social and economic life.
Measuring success without reducing it to a single figure
Asked how to evaluate the project after five or ten years, Alonso proposes a system of indicators consistent with the triple bottom line. The first indicator is straightforward: completing the community and establishing permanent residence. From there, the assessment expands to environmental, social and economic effects.
In the environmental dimension, he mentions energy generation, CO2 absorption and increased plant and animal biodiversity. In the social and economic dimensions, he proposes observing the activity generated by the project: employment, a potential local earth-building company, new groups, a coworking or entrepreneurship space, increased use of the bar and shop, and residents registered with the municipality. The subject of assessment is not simply the housing built, but the resilient community and the changes it activates in its surroundings.
Alonso adds a particularly revealing indicator: replicability. If the model works, generates activity and inspires others to reproduce it, the experience will have demonstrated a capacity for learning that extends beyond the site itself. Measuring, therefore, does not mean reducing everything to one figure, but building a body of evidence that shows whether the system is alive and producing the intended effects.
Housing: diverse forms of tenure and a cultural condition
The relationship between the private, the shared and the public does not depend on a single legal arrangement. Alonso places rental housing, more temporary coliving, private ownership and collective ownership with a right of use within the same field of exploration. The latter allows housing to be taken out of the speculative market: the resident contributes share capital, obtains a right of use and recovers their contribution when leaving the community.
Collaborative architecture, however, is not presented as a universal solution. It requires a culture of collaboration and residents who recognise the value of neighbourly relationships. People who do not want to share or participate are unlikely to find their preferred model here. The conclusion is not to impose a way of life, but to diversify the offer so that an alternative also exists for those who wish to live within a collaborative culture.
A responsibility and, at the same time, a field for experimentation
At the end of the conversation, Alonso places architects and urban planners before a direct responsibility. Buildings and cities account for a substantial share of resource consumption, energy use, emissions and waste, but they are also the places where society lives, works and interacts. For him, internalising global concerns and turning them into solutions is not an optional addition to the profession.
His interpretation is nevertheless deliberately positive. The paradigm shift opens up a field of research: learning from biology, observing how natural systems work and applying those principles to the systems through which we live. The transition will not be immediate. Alonso reminds us that major cultural changes take time, although he sees signs across different disciplines, in the growing interest in systemic thinking, in the city of proximity and in the recovery of care and the commons.
Key lessons from the interview for urban planning practice
- A broader perspective. Economic viability is necessary but insufficient: it must be considered alongside social and environmental impacts.
- Relationships before components. Urban projects must address connections between uses, spaces, communities and cycles, rather than treating each element separately.
- Shared space as infrastructure. Communal areas can sustain care, trust, culture and collective capacity in the face of crises.
- Hardware and software. The physical framework needs processes of activation, governance, learning and conflict resolution.
- Nested scales. Buildings, neighbourhoods, municipalities and territories can connect without each community losing its identity and autonomy.
- Local listening. A regenerative intervention does not enter an empty context: it must build trust and a shared future with the people who already live there.
- Multidimensional measurement. Evaluation must combine energy, carbon, biodiversity, residence, employment, local activity, social connections and the capacity for replication.
From object to ecosystem
The idea running through the whole interview is easy to express but demanding to apply: designing is not about arranging isolated objects, but creating the conditions for a system to live. This requires looking beyond the plot and over a longer period than construction alone. It also requires recognising that community, biodiversity and the local economy are not side effects, but components of the project.
From this perspective, the role of architecture and urban planning shifts. It is no longer limited to reducing impacts or meeting programme requirements; it must connect the private, the shared and the public, and build relationships that can sustain themselves, learn and adapt. The challenge is not to produce an organic form, but to make the city function more like a living system.
Interview conducted on 19 May 2026
