This project is part of the political concerns of the municipality of Santa Marta and the Carulla Foundation to improve the educational and nutritional conditions of the communities displaced by violence, and settled on the outside perimeter of the city. It is meant to develop infrastructure to improve the conditions of early childhood and low-income neighborhoods to the most vulnerable population between ages of 0 to 5 years old. These areas are characterized by violence and lack of public infrastructure.
The challenge as architects in a context like Colombia is to develop projects that can generate social inclusion. The problem lies not only in designing and constructing buildings in deteriorated areas, but to activate new forms of use, ownership and pride in the communities.
The value of architecture lies not only in itself but on what it produces. To define these arguments it is necessary to extend our gaze beyond the architecture itself. Architecture cannot only relate to itself, but widening our gaze and finding new ways to operate, to resist and be better equipped to meet the current conditions.
The image of the building refers to the geography of the region, rather than an object. We intend to develop an architectural landscape building that is related to the geography and topography, where it is inserted. We find rules of organization to develop projects that promote a "new natural contract” by reformulating the relationship between figure and background, an approach in search of alternatives capable of promoting that “new natural contract” in tune with a landscape and a natural order.
Our project is developing a functional strategy, and environmental space based on a modular system or repeated patterns that can be connected in various ways, allowing it to adapt to various urban educational, topographical or geometric situations
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This system builds indoor games, garden spaces and generates various educational situations: concentrated classes, outdoor covered areas, concentration of the school in a large open courtyard, scattering in various playgrounds linked to areas and to native ecosystem education, through the planting and care of endemic areas.
More than a finished and closed architecture we propose the development of an open and adaptive system, consisting of modules with the form of a flower, that can be adapted to diverse situations, whether topographical, urban or programmatic, which generate buildings able to grow, change, and adapted according to particular or temporary circumstance, a strategy that allows changes, accidents and interchangeabilities, thought a method rather than a permanent form and that only exists in virtue of its ability to change.