Lara Plácido

 

                                                                                                    

The XII Latin American Social Architecture Student Workshop, Bolivia 2015, brings together students and architects of different nationalities that seek to generate social intervention in the Valley of Cinti in Camargo. The purpose of this workshop is to foster authentic construction and maintain local identity.  

 

The ​​intervention focused on the area known by the locals as “EL TOBOGAN” (The Slide) located in the southwest of the city and it was implemented with the aim of being a pedestrian area of ​​transition between the city and the cemetery. This space accumulates two functions:  it is both a slide addressed to children as a play area and a tour that alternates assets and liabilities organized by levels to overcome the height difference that separates the city from the cemetery.

 

The first visit to this place showed an amorphous space that was not integrated by the people of Camargo into their daily life. People did not use this space because it was neglected, it had no vegetation and it offered no comfort to be a living place or a viewpoint. Besides, it was extremely exposed to the sun, which made it an inhabitable space in the hottest hours.

 

The team agreed that the purpose of the intervention should be to recover the space, to encourage recreational activity, which contributes to both physical and mental development, and to create a space with features that characterize its context and recover local identity. Contact with the community was constantly sought to strengthen the role of the architect as an intermediary between citizens and the built environment, the city. In addition, it was suggested that the work should be carried out with the support of the community with ideas, materials and equipment, which allowed them to integrate the construction work, fostering the re-appropriation of their public spaces.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Students developed analysis exercises in the urban context and with the community’s help through site visits, identification of materials and vegetation of the area, interviews, discussion and consensus. The final proposal of intervention its concept and line of work was generated from these exercises. A reinterpretation of the line which is a constant natural landscape of Camargo and is brought to the built urban context led to the construction of a structure using reeds as the primary material. These reeds were placed randomly and were united and strengthened by wire leading to the creation of structures with different shapes, height and shadow effects. Wood, stone and vegetation of the area were added to the reeds as complements.