Architecture reconciles the sense of belonging and dignity of space. In addition to designing residential or cultural facilities, addressing public space in communities that inhabit vulnerable areas is also urgent and necessary to provide a dignified infrastructure that provides quality of life for the population. Therefore, we have gathered seven interventions in marginalized territories that show the potential for transformation from the space itself.
There are different examples of collective participation throughout the process. These include the formation of community members who help in its construction and recycling elements from the context and materials suitable for execution. Check out the seven interventions below that have brought new meanings to meetings, leisure, and health facilities for the community.
Xicoténcatl Park / Taller Capital
"After the project team visited and understood the urgent need of the community for public and recreational spaces, as well as witnessed the enormous amount of debris that filled the canal, a drastic change in the program was proposed: to place the debris on platforms to create sports and recreational spaces that linked both sides of the stream, as a result of actions already initiated by the community, where this material was used to create a simple soccer field. (...) With the llantimuro, a local and vernacular construction system that recycles tires, retaining walls were built to structure the intervention through clear geometry, focused on minimizing slopes and creating universal accessibility."
Tapis Rouge public space in an informal neighborhood in Haiti / Emergent Vernacular Architecture (EVA Studio)
"The design itself is inherently community-oriented and understands public space as an anthropological ground from which identity and social relations grow. Through a participatory approach and through placing community engagement at the core of the design process, this public space aims to give transformative power to a local community and to provide the residents with a sense of ownership, identity, and pride. The goal was to create a safer and cleaner environment, which would help reduce crime, violence, and anti-social behaviour in the area."
Parque Fresnillo / Rozana Montiel | Estudio de Arquitectura + Alin V. Wallach
"We recycled a sewage canal into a leisure square within a housing unit. The canal had a major obstacle: an inaccessible bridge that blocked its way. We worked with the idea of creating more than just a bridge, resulting in a universally accessible connection with integrated playground equipment and a terrace underneath, transforming the space into a meeting place with nighttime lighting. We also reconstructed the canal slopes to function as a resting area, a forum, and a play area with stairs and slopes. The bridge, flooring, and slopes we designed are equipped with a multifunctional program."
Urban Rehabilitation of Alto de Bomba / OUTROS BAIRROS
"The physical improvements are therefore focused on the containment of slopes, new drainage paths, construction of new sewage and water supply networks, paving of streets, construction of stone walls and access stairs to higher elevations. At the same time, the activation of the public space allowed, in the specific case of phase 2, to carry out a paving experience with a group of ten women who, after completing the training, paved the entire area."
Praça da Saudade / Natureza Urbana
"Before characterized by a large cemented area and lacking greenery, the square now has hills to expand vegetation, masonry bleachers, and space for florists who now attend visitors to the cemetery with better infrastructure. Laminated glued wood coverings were created, originating from reforestation. Both in the covering elements and in the rest of the space, there is a fluid aesthetic, an aesthetic reference to Lençóis Maranhenses."
Parque Esmeralda: Community Garden Project / CAW Arquitectos
"From a landfill to garden in the desert. In its origins, the land where the project was built was part of a small stream, but for more than 40 years it was filled with garbage and rubble. (...) Inside these groves, the project contemplates accessible circulations, small meeting places, and community gardens, which finally unite two neighborhoods that were divided for decades since they were separated by the landfill. In this way, the park is composed of a delicate social and ecological fabric between zones of high vegetation cover, intermediate zones of lower vegetation, orchards, and more exposed programmatic zones (with pavements)."
Praça da Árvore / Lazo Arquitetura e Urbanismo
"The project began with the community, starting with on-site workshops with the involvement of children and the network that surrounds them. (...) The project’s transformation included layout revisions that suggest the reuse of existing paving areas and the rescue of natural systems - with materials, soil and tree planting - that make the project execution less complex and a lot cheaper. From that, it was possible to maintain the dry fountain and the playful topography, without harming the expectations already left in place."
