a+u Architecture and Urbanism 22:03_618

a+u’s March issue features the architecture, landscape, and cities of Colombia. A land of intoxicating natural beauty, Colombia has employed architecture as a key agent in rebuilding its cities and civil society as it recovers from decades of civil strife stemming from drug trafficking and guerilla warfare. Situated at the northern tip of South America, the country borders the Pacific Ocean, Caribbean Sea, and the Amazon basin and is equidistant to New York and Rio de Janeiro. Photographic work by Camilo Echavarría illustrates how travels through the country cause one to feel a homogeneous, abstract passage of time. With no seasons, architecture is conditioned by various landscapes formed by the rich geographic diversity across regions. Medellínbased architect and guest editor Camilo Restrepo Ochoa takes us on a journey through his…

Atlas of the Andes This project is shaped by my experiences in the landscape and reflections on how humans relate to his natural milieu, either as an observer, an inhabitant, or an agent of transformation. Its aim is to become a visual, personal atlas of the botanical, geological, and climatic diversity of the northern Andes mountain range, from the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta, to the Chimborazo volcano and the Peruvian desert. I intend to represent the beauty of nature’s vastness as well as the fragility of the infinitesimal particles that compose it. By recording nature’s building blocks – botanics, geology, weather, and so on – in the context of a landscape image, these works convey the complex and indivisible connections between the grandiose and the miniscule. Camilo Echavarría Camilo Echavarría’s work approaches…

In Colombia, height above sea level and humidity determine temperature, making time abstract and seasons indistinguishable. We live in a homogeneous time frame, participating in the same activities and eating the same dishes year-round. Tropical conditions define our existence. Here, space is dynamic. We constantly negotiate the boundary between inside and outside through the construction of the inbetween, allowing the public realm to enter the private, making space porous, hard to close, generous and open to the people who use and occupy it. A tropical way of making space is a particular way of understanding architecture and producing it, with an interesting and long lineage of conversations and exchange among cultures – a theoretical and material bricolage of disciplinary thoughts and deep-rooted frameworks for thinking and doing. It takes place through…

Farallones Coffee Wet Mill Ciudad Bolívar, Colombia 2015–2016 Coffee production has a long tradition within the Colombian economy. Building an economically successful community coffee wet mill required that the project respect all shared interests of not only the company, but also the different affiliates of the cooperative and their biggest client. The project is a joint venture between a cooperative and Colombia’s largest coffee company: Farallones. Located 75 km southwest from Medellín, the mill is 1.2 m above sea level, in a typical region for coffee production. Production of coffee requires a step-by-step process: peeling the cherry, fermenting the nut in water for 8 to 12 hours, and then drying the nut either in the sun or by artificial heat. Then the nut is ready for roasting, a process that takes place at…

NIDO El Retiro, Colombia 2010–2017 The starting point for designing NIDO was to question the regulations for building in the central mountain range of Antioquia. Although the site is rich in hydrology, pine plantations, and native forests, the environmental corporation Cornare characterized the lot as useless, covering less than 5,000 m2 and set in steep slopes and mixed forest. These conditions are very common for the territory and reflect the inappropriate regulations for the prevailing reality. Colombia’s tropical region is generous in these humid forests, so it is imperative to find sensitive typologies for harmonious coexistence with the landscape’s great natural wealth. To achieve only minimum contact with the ground and only the slightest modifications to the terrain, and out of respect for the existing vegetation, the structure uses deep cantilevers. This habitable…

Medellín, Colombia 2011–2013 Ctrl G Carpinelo Kindergarten is the third in our series of public kindergartens. We wanted to think beyond designing 3 different projects in the same organizational system and vary each one according to the particularities of its plot. We appreciated the competition calling these projects “kindergartens” and not “nurseries,” because it prompted us to think of the kindergarten as a garden. We realized that in addition to being places destined for the teaching and care of children, our kindergartens could have space for growing flowers, vegetables, and small shrubs. We wanted to create a garden where children could play, learn, and sow among the classrooms, playgrounds, and vegetable gardens – a true children’s garden where children could at once cultivate and be cultivated. We understand the kindergarten as a structure that…