in the year 2004 still being a
architecture student I was
doing my internship in the company
urban development of Medellin
at that time we had a large network
formulate an urban project in the area
of influence of the metrocable system the
first cable meter to be built in
the city and it is built in the country
to each architect we were assigned a
neighborhood we had the Santo Domingo neighborhood
the popular neighborhood and the andalusian neighborhood
I got the popular neighborhood
I confess that it was not easy
for me as a person and as
professional understand the territory what
I walked I walked I walked its streets and not
I really found my eyes were
invisible opportunities for
Realize a transformation
they were moments of anguish because the
popular neighborhood is a neighborhood that comes from
informal neighborhood processes that is very
Compact of narrow star streets
streets that labyrinthine when one
travel its streets
one can still see at that time
those traces of violence and pain
and the inequality that has punished a lot of
our cities
however something wonderful that always
I was walking the streets was
the smile of the people really were
very complex physical conditions
but I go back and I repeat my eyes were
invisible to find big
opportunities
What I did was call my friend Edgar
edgar diaz sociologist by profession
I said to dedicate
I have to formulate a project but
I do not find opportunities in this
territory and we came up with the idea to him
I said why not call on the
community and so we did
the next day we held a meeting in
the popular neighborhood number 2
edgar summoned approximately 60 leaders
were about six o’clock
in the afternoon and I was very nervous because
It was my first contact with the community
the only thing that arrives for that meeting fum
in white and colors
I had more or less approximately 21
years since at this meeting the people a
little suspicious of what he was doing
person so young that I was going to tell them and
the first thing that occurred to me in that
moment was to tell them something and that is
we had arrived at that place with a
only intention to listen to them
at that time people were changed
broke the ice they said here they did not come
to promise us nothing here they came to
someone to bring a blank shot with
colors heard and immediately the
proposal of that dynamic was that they
will shape their problems because
from these problems leads to
formulate a project
the surprise was that they were not problems
those who came out of that meeting
what came out was great
wonderful opportunities opportunities
and I wondered and I because I saw
those opportunities that were in that
neighborhood something magical opportunity they spoke
of community aquarium washrooms inside
of the neighborhood quebradas that sailed between
the houses what I proposed is
let’s take a tour I want to like
saint tomás verify that that existed
effectively the next day with a
teacher lend a camera and it seemed
a procession of holy week
we are several architects
approximately 30 community leaders
touring the streets of the neighborhood
popular and we gave in apple hearts
we enter through alleys of 70
centimeters laundry community
mothers head of family with a
vallenato washing clothes a great
opportunity of a project we find
magical aquariums
yes gentlemen fish aquariums where the
They were taken care of by young people from the neighborhood
projects fully loaded with memory
collective
we find in some way also a
symbol of inequity in many cases
public spaces assigned all this
input from the community and listen to us and
to understand ourselves was really what we
It helps us to be able to formulate a
draft
at that time they started doing something
very important that history marked the
planning and that has put in
medellin
in some way as a reference in the
world the imaginary workshops the
imaginary workshops are that
collective construction methodology
between the state and citizens
unap somehow transformation that
it is not imposed by the state
here the citizens are at
through architecture urbanism
of high quality is the platform for
achieve true transformations the
citizens have the opportunity in
these co-creation spaces to draw
dream and think and I wondered how
I was barely ripping into information
already as a professional architecture because
in the private environment we asked the
client as he wants his house but because
in the public environment we did not ask the
citizen how does your park like
he really wants his street
past transformations in the
imaginary of the community really
achieve transformations that are social
then he will tell you one
wonderful story that happened to me
designing a park in the popular neighborhood
we are in one of those many
workshops I remember very well still ernest
Uribe a wonderful person
approximately 60 years
at that time we had started the
activity they had to draw from
how he imagined in that park and
ernesto had not ripped off his drawing
I approached, I told Ernesto that
happens and the very timidly with his eyes
expressed that it was very difficult to write
in words what I dreamed
what I did was a red pencil I said
draw what your heart feels and I with
markit in architect that I should know for
to be able to project ss part
then I came back after 15 minutes and I
I found this drawing a drawing that
I was impacted immediately because
I understood what that drawing was about
very sensitive thinking in front of
neighborhood and I hit him ernesto to move to
front of the activity and will explain the
community
Ernesto stood up
more or less we were about 45 people a
workshop that we constantly do
He explained the following way architect
if you are going to design a park
please keep in mind that the
around the park houses the house that
you see around do not stay
only in the park because it is that
houses that we live there are difficulties and that
good please that those homes are
transform that water is improved
that is being lost because the place
that we are transforming to there was a
water birth please recover
that there are sources that are
some way small public pools
so that children play that is not
there is a source
the drawing right away is not a dog is
a bank said I want to have a
worthy public space to sit
because usually in these neighborhoods
there are no spaces to sit alone
there are spaces to circulate
I want to have a bench where I
can rest and please and in that of
flowers because it really is a city
that has flowers I want my park
have flowers with ernesto uribe
a citizen of the popular neighborhood in
four drawings expressed what is a
true transformation
he did not stay in public space the
the house went beyond improvement
the integrated neighborhoods transcended
environment
the recovery of water as a point
of meeting for the public space the
space for recreation banking
as a symbol of high public space
quality and the local landscape as a
element that integrates the spaces that
we build that is Medellin and that’s the
wisdom of his people is what he has
allowed in some way today to be a
city that is inspiring and many
transformations
then he is going to tell you three
stories that are based on this
collective construction of city
the first story is the linear park
which now the herrera located in the
popular neighborhood as you very well know
every neighborhood has a park nearby and by
the general square parks
if in that park it is usually
locate the church the trade the
most representative buildings and that
park becomes the symbol
the reference of that neighborhood the park of
vélez in the park of boston the park
of bolívar but the popular neighborhood does not
had a part the reference on the
city of the popular district that was the
violence therefore the community
said architect we took away a
park that does not mean that people
understand that the neighborhood exists here
popular that we did we became faithful to
our transformation process a
imaginary workshop where people are
will sit with us and start thinking
how was it even that they will start
draw and start writing that you
imagined
it was not easy because finding a
apple to make a park in that
labyrinthine plot what it implies for
buying lots demanded a lot of money
displacement of people however
We do not stop
we did several workshops and in one of those
workshops
I remember very well a girl the lady
wonderful already stopped and raised her hand and
said the following lady architect regina
is that because the parks have to be
full squares said they have to
have it two the same because the parks
are not linear, understanding that the
popular neighborhood had a gulch to
from that idea of dona regina
we understood that we can connect the
potential that the neighborhood had as the
Broken that structure goes memory
that people understood that what now
had to recover and effectively
that’s what we did in the popular neighborhood
built the linear park to break the
barrier that starts from the metro station
cable the popular and connects with the most
high of the holy station Sunday a
urban acupuncture project where the
communities stopped seeing the ravine
like the cloaca or the back of
the houses and really what
they built as a public space
for them this was what existed in
that moment and that was really built
a magical space where those traces of
small houses that were high
risk the relocated moss and those little
platforms of the
I’m going to make the houses from
the community imaginaries are
they turned into courts they became
in public pools and from those
imaginary remind regina
the park became a park
linear that transformed and became the
dorsal spine of this neighborhood and
we found wonderful things
the popular neighborhood had champions
national chess
this park article perfectly another
park that is close to the park
of chess and in this way is that it
achieve true transformations and the
second story is the sun grape of
East in the middle east of Medellin
the sun district of the east is located in
the base of the hill sugar bread a
neighborhood with a privileged view of the
city
I invite you to meet her in that place
we had a wonderful challenge to build
a grape that is a grape a grape is a
articulated life unit is a
multipurpose equipment that mixes
sport culture and recreation is a
hybrid we mix those three components
and the lot we had to build
that grape was the court of the neighborhood is a
urban recycling project but you
know what it means to touch the court and a
neighborhood
if it were a district court is
temple of the neighborhood
it really is the place where young people
they meet and that ‘s where they build
his life was difficult but what we did
we were faithful to our thinking
What we did was summon the
community we call them in different
workshops so that they will participate and
Do not want the idea of how you imagined
in that grape from different
scratch drawing exercises to come back
at the beginning it was complex and the first
that they or message that they sent us
we as the architects was
architect the court is not touched
we had a clear problem as a
building of 4 thousand square meters
we are going to implant in that field without
However our people are wonderful
a negative came a proposal and we
they said architect and if the court then the
they raise and under the court they put their
4,000 square meters built
there was an idea that comes from the
community that is born from these workshops
participation immediately
when we saw this drawing that you see
below on the drawing screen
made by the community we are impacted
a lot because from that drawing
began to define the line of what was going
to be the project that we are
building you see there is the
court as a protagonist and
under the court and the programs that
we will include sports centers playrooms
lounges for the local community
commercial immediately down to the
design Workshop
these are our drawings where
we decided the court has to be lifted and
We immediately build models that
we started playing with them raise that
cover to lift that lid we found that
they could easily embed the
different sports programs
saunas salons that were somehow
that program that they were giving us to
in front of the municipal administration
look at that imaginary that was the
community imaginary a court and that
court became a court that
Rose in the sun district of the East
if we get that field when we get up
build a public theater a
bleachers that allowed people to access
to this sports scene
that old sand court to
get up
undoubtedly became a
multipurpose equipment for
city
we went from having a field nothing in it
to pass a synthetic high court
quality
the first gazebo court of our
Medellin city
if you see this other image we pass
to move from a sports arena one
court to have five scenarios
effective sports and from that
this urban transformation exercise
infrastructure exceeded being a
building really became a
transformation that is social
the architecture in Medellin has
become an excuse for
transform lives
undoubtedly where never the state
I had arrived when this
high quality equipment in a
really abandoned territory begins
to generate really radiate
transformation around the
population
the third story is the gardens
children of the city in Medellin
they built approximately more than 20
high quality kindergartens that
We are all very proud of their
twenty-one kindergartens six
playgrounds were designed
under a very special strategy based
in the community imaginaries a
collective construction among pedagogues
citizens children teachers all
We gather at a table and start
extract that city from the community and
was born a wonderful architects idea
we want buildings that are not
libraries
we want buildings that are
for children and if those buildings are
toys that look like toys that
the children sit in that place a
funny space
effectively that idea marked us
and remember this this enríquez game
neiff that toy in the hands
we think like that toy in the hand of
children happens to be the toy that was
inhabited by them no longer passes
was in the child’s hand as such but
that this toy what it did is that it
inhabited by the child as such he
I began to explore its spaces
that was the primary idea that we had
effectively what we did
from that exercise was to build
a modular piece that modular piece like
the snei rubric allowed us to design and
children’s gardens in different
places of the city
There were six different implementations
six games
almost to implement the project was everything
a game you see there the
implantations that became
effectively in six projects six
wonderful projects you what
are going to see below are not mounts
they are constructions that are already
inhabited by ni
in the city of Medellin in the garden
infantile of castilla the infantile garden
of aures garden of the garden
architectures that are toys in the
high quality efficient territory
energetically and that have allowed the
paste a program called good
start of the city programs that
some way more that I come back and I repeat
an infrastructure are programs that
transform lives
there they will see in some way like those
architectures begin to interact with
the dynamic spaces that children
they need for their training
undoubtedly what we have seen up to
now in Medellin is a transformation
physical that has started a
transformation that social but I
I always say something the real
transformation of Medellin
let’s see in 20 years when these
children that you see here that today
they form in high kindergartens
quality travel streets and decent neighborhoods
with decent homes they go to study a
High quality school are recreated in
a grape has that sporting scenario of
high quality and those children grow up and we
govern
I really believe that there we have the
true transformation of Medellin
thank you very much
[Applause]
[Music]
”
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