The international architecture and design festival Concéntrico, held annually in Logroño, is participating for the first time in Hay Festival with a dual proposal that activates the public space of Segovia's Plaza Mayor. Dancing Bench, an installation by London-based studio Soft Baroque, is presented alongside the book Concéntrico: Urban Innovation Laboratory, edited by Nick Axel and Javier Peña Ibáñez and published by Park Books.
Dancing Bench is part of a series of mobile furniture pieces that transform everyday objects through a mechanism of parallel moving planes. Upon sitting, the visitor is invited to spin them, generating an experience somewhere between an optical illusion and an unusual ergonomic sensation. These benches "dance" with you or for you, creating moments of visual distortion but also of shared calm, like a rocking chair or an urban hammock. With support from the British Council, Dancing Bench was presented for the first time at the last edition of Concéntrico (June 2025).
The book Concéntrico: Urban Innovation Laboratory chronicles a decade of the festival in Logroño, documenting 150 interventions that have transformed the city into a laboratory for urban innovation. Through 86 projects by artists, architects, and designers from 20 countries, the publication explores how architecture and design can activate public space, strengthen communities, and open up new forms of relationship between citizens and their surrounding
Event in Spanish
