How to build a paradise on Earth?

This question forms the foundation of a thesis that explores the urgent need for refuge—both from climatic extremes and from the sensory overstimulation that defines life in contemporary cities. Situated in Madrid—one of the cities most affected by the urban heat island effect worldwide—the project investigates the concept of refuge as a spatial, ecological, and cultural condition within the urban fabric.
Focusing on the Casa de Campo—Madrid’s historic royal retreat—the thesis re-examines the intertwined relationship between nature and culture. Drawing on Madrid’s origins, founded on and shaped by water, the project reinterprets the city’s current, lost connection to this essential element. By embracing low-tech strategies and taking maximum advantage of natural conditions, the intervention activates water and the diverse life forms it sustains, making its temporality and microclimatic effects both physically and sensorially perceptible.
Engaging with symbolic, historical, and technological precedents, the thesis envisions a site that redefines refuge—not only as shelter, but as a space for balancing human and non-human forms of regeneration, thereby aiming to reconnect people with their natural environment. Through an interdisciplinary, body-centric approach, the project explores how design can enter this balancing act in order to construct a contemporary form of paradise.