Living The Grades

Living The Grades reimagines the disused Plaza de Toros of Tangier as a cultural and social meeting place for the city, a Master’s final project by Boro Alvarez Sánchez set in this northern Moroccan port. The bullring stands as a building of great volumetric quality and some past importance within the city, yet it has sat empty for a long time. The proposal treats that emptiness as opportunity, giving Tangier a space of encounter at a moment when the city is in the mood to grow and to act as the nexus between Africa and Europe.

The setting carries real cultural weight. Tangier is a multicultural city where great artistic figures such as Henri Matisse once found inspiration, and the project answers that legacy by inviting collective life back into a structure many had stopped seeing. The intervention rests on three connected moves. The first works on the immediate environment of the building, stitching it back into the surrounding streets so it reads as part of the city rather than an isolated relic. The second acts on the facade of the Plaza, modifying its coronation and applying a vegetal facade system that helps combat the high temperatures of the area. The third reworks the interior, generating patios and emptying certain tiers while inserting new volumes that fit into the pre-existing structure and turn activity toward the heart of the ring.

Adaptive reuse and the architecture of the bullring

Reusing a former bullring is a particular kind of design challenge. The circular plan, steep tiers, and heavy perimeter were shaped for a single spectacle, so adapting them for everyday cultural and social use asks the architect to keep the structure’s character while loosening its rigid geometry. Carving patios and selectively removing tiers brings daylight and air into a deep section, a familiar concern in adaptive reuse where new programs must coexist with an inherited frame. The vegetal facade adds an environmental layer suited to the warm climate of Tangier, softening the building’s mass and tempering the interior without erasing its presence on the skyline.

By facing the new activity inward, Living The Grades keeps the memory of the arena alive while changing what it is for. The result is a careful argument that an abandoned monument can hold the social and cultural life a growing city needs.