triBall,Madrid The near-naked woman in the string vest is laughing about the day she saw herself on television. She was in a bar in the neighbourhood where she plies her trade and suddenly there she was on the bar's TV, standing on the corner of the street, waiting for business.

There had been a lot of journalists around that day because it was the inauguration of a project to bring new life, wealth and art to the rundown triangle of central Madrid located between Gran Vía and Fuencarral and Corredera Baja de San Pablo. Notorious for prostitution and hard drugs, the zone, or barrio, had been ignored by developers for two decades before two entrepreneurs, Eduardo Moreno, an economist, and Miguel Angel Santa, an architect, came up with the idea of La Asociación de Comerciantes triBall (the triBall Merchants' Association).

The aim of triBall, subtitled Okupación Creativa, was to attract businesses, retailers and above all artists to the area, transforming it into a pleasant, cultured and commercial neighbourhood. Moreno and Santa bought up many of the brothels, and other local merchants agreed to cede their premises to a group of artists known as La Maison, free for a month, after which rent agreements would be made.