utopia through small practices Designers frequently approach the principle of ‘paradise’ through enthusiastic masterplans and conceptual theses for long runs. Madrid-based Izaskun Chinchilla Architects approaches the idea through something far smaller, at the scale of material and embroidery. The short-lived structure ‘Levedad y denuncia. El bordado como utopía en femenino,’ stands along the waterfront in San Sebastián, and treats utopian thinking as a style approach driven by involvement and craft.
The task visualizes what the studio refers to as ‘a democratic, delicate, and pluralistic paradise,’ which is formed through cumulative gestures. In this sense, the interactive setup moves the discussion away from abstract teaching or speculative prepare for future cities and toward the social practices that offer those cities significance. Each sewed concept ends up being a contribution to a much better life that– while modest– is actually tangible.
images © Mikel Blasco, courtesy Mugak/2025 Izaskun Chinchilla pictures a future through embroidery The structure formed part of the 5th International Mugak Architecture Biennial, which this year scattered momentary architectural installations across public squares in Bilbao, San Sebastián, and Vitoria-Gasteiz (see designboom’s coverage here). Curators prompted designers to take a look at how architecture and design can trigger public space and engage with the withstanding question of paradise.
The group at Izaskun Chinchilla Architects responded to this context with a pavilion in San Sebastián developed from recycled boat sails and plastics recovered from the sea. Curved poles stretch a taut textile canopy that increases lightly above the plaza. Underneath it, a field of circular frames holds embroidered surface areas and open hoops awaiting brand-new contributions. The pavilion accommodates gatherings, workshops, and conversation, yet its most defining feature depends on the slow process of making that happens within it.
Izaskun Chinchilla Architects presents a pavilion exploring paradise through cumulative embroidery ‘feminine’craft as a medium for change The practice of stitching feminist stories into fabric has deep precedents. Suffragist banners performed British streets in the early twentieth century and narrative patchworks created by Chilean women during the Pinochet dictatorship both utilized needlework as a kind of protest. The project draws from this lineage and commemorates a technique that has long been dismissed due to its feminine association.
The structure’s designers describe embroidery as a medium that ‘marks, narrates, changes, and knocks.’ Its apparent special hides a capability to bring collective memory. Within the setup, thread functions as a tool for tape-recording civic issues. Each theme becomes a small declaration about the city and the conditions forming it.
As the designers discuss, the setup ‘revives embroidery, a custom historically related to care and female artisanal production, and raises it to the status of an architectural and political tool.‘
the Dreambroidery Workshop invites visitors to sew visions of a future city Dreambroidery workshop for Collective Imagination Involvement goes into
the job
through the Dreambroidery Workshop, a public activity that
welcomed visitors to embroider their visions of a utopian city. The exercise opened the discussion to groups who seldom participate in formal city debates. Kids, elders, neighbors, and visitors stitched their concepts about care, housing, ecology, and shared space. The hoops created for the workshop attach magnetically to the structure’s structure, which permits the installation
to
grow slowly as new contributions show up. With time, the architecture ends up being a layered archive of stitched declarations. In this process, Izaskun Chinchilla changes embroidery into a progressing metropolitan discussion. These installed hoops were 3D printed to reference traditional Basque embroidery patterns. Signs within this pattern address contemporary issues
such as housing price or biodiversity loss. So, embroidery ends up being both product and language, and equate social problems into sewn patterns that collect across the structure. reconfigurable embroidery hoops are 3D-printed using plastic from the ocean
lightness
and the ephemeral city
The structure stays deliberately lightweight, as recycled sails are extended to create a translucent enclosure that responds to wind and changing daylight. The structure brings echoes of maritime equipment, short-lived shelters, or perhaps celebration camping tents that appear briefly in public squares before vanishing once again.
This sense of impermanence enhances the job’s argument: utopian thinking emerges through short-lived interventions that permit experimentation within existing urban spaces. Instead of proposing a long-term monument, the setup shapes a versatile stage where cumulative expression can happen through craft.
recycled boat sails form a light-weight fabric structure open to the public square
a
continuing style method
The pavilion also shows a more comprehensive trajectory within the work of Izaskun Chinchilla Architects. In previous projects, the studio has explored how textile systems and lightweight structures improve public area. The Solar Trees setups produced from plywood and fabric brought adaptable shade structures across urban plazas in Colombia. Previously, a Bojagi Lounge pavilion of inflatable donut structures presented was built in South Korea and invited visitors to inhabit soft, donut-shaped volumes that responded to motion and interaction.
Across these tasks, the studio’s practice analyzes how playful materials and participatory construction approaches reshape the relationship in between architecture and the public– textile-based strategies end up being tools for engagement in the city.