If you pay attention to the title, you may have noticed that it reads the same from left to right as from right to left. This is called a palindrome (from the Greek παλίνδρομο, palíndromos, ‘that goes back and forth’).

The Festival ETSA·TOPIA 2018 opted for the circle as their symbol and it turns out that a palindrome is nothing more than a vicious circle. A vicious circle or diallelus (from the Greek διαλελο, diallelos, ‘reciprocal’) is a situation without exit, a fish that bites its own tail.

We present the architectural version of the vicious circle. What could be called a 3D palindrome; it’s the tridimensional version of a “capicúa” (a number which is palindrome, symmetrical and reversible). It is an accessible space that starts the same way it ends and, in this case, intercepted by an intermediate area that reinforces the idea of space without exit.