Cooler Capital: Renewing Madrid for the Decades Ahead

Madrid is at an inflection point. As one of Europe's most heat-exposed capitals, the city is grappling with the urgent need to cool and renew its built fabric, while simultaneously modernising its General Urban Plan, a framework first adopted in 1997 now being reshaped to embed sustainability, climate resilience and urban regeneration into the rules of development. It is a rare moment when policy, design and investment can align to define what the city becomes next.

Central to that conversation is circularity as an urban strategy. Retrofitting rather than demolishing, extending the lifespan of buildings, reusing what already exists: in a city where the renovation of the existing building stock is key to addressing heat, energy efficiency and urban regeneration, circular construction becomes a practical tool for reducing emissions, waste and costs.

CityMakers Live brings together city officials, practitioners, developers, businesses at Infinito Delicias, a winner of the Holcim Foundation Awards 2023 for its retrofit of a former industrial building, and a living proof of what is possible. 

The evening opens with a welcome introduction from Husos, Elii and Ultrazul, the three teams behind the project, followed by a cross-disciplinary panel discussion around what it takes to renew Madrid.

18:00 - Doors open & welcome by the Holcim Foundation

18:30 - Panel discussion & Q&A

20:00 - Cocktail reception

21:00 - Close of evening

Infinito Delicias is a former industrial building in the Delicias neighbourhood of Madrid, transformed through a collective circular retrofit by three architecture practices — Husos, Elii and Ultrazul — into a mixed cultural and hospitality space, recognised by the Holcim Foundation Awards 2023 as an exemplary model of adaptive reuse.

Infinito Delicias gives a forgotten building a second life — demonstrating that the most radical act in a city under pressure is sometimes simply to work with what is already there.

CityMakers Live is Holcim Foundation’s new events platform focused on responsible urban development through conversations between people who shape cities.

Each edition brings together the people who shape the city — municipalities, architects and engineers, developers, academia, civil society — for a conversation on a tension that city is facing.

The series launches in Bucharest in June 2026, then travels to other cities over the year.