DESIGN
Revealing the hidden landscape
CONCEPTUAL STAGE
24/03/19
EXPLANATION
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From my research I reached three conclusions: there are two main flows in the slopes of Medellín: water flows down and the city is growing upwards. These building has an effect on the natural behaviour of the mountain. And the informal settlements are growing, and this growth is very difficult to control. So there is a clash of these two flows, and this is because there is a lack of conversation between the city and the landscape.
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From these conclusions I developed my concept. Firstly the fact that the city of Medellín needs a change of mindset and understand the city and the landscape as overlaying entities, not like black and white, thus processes and dynamics of both entities should be considered and integrated. And secondly that the areas of the city where the landscape is trying to come out should be allowed to and that the city could grow outside of its limit in safe areas.
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The main theory that has informed my design is Planning for future settlements by David Gouverneur which suggests using landscape armatures to plan for future settlements. While I used this idea I also challenged it and applied it to existing informal settlements and the formal city. I applied this idea of armatures in Medellín following the stream system that runs down form the mountains into the main river throughout the entire city: forming what I have called a vein system in reference to Eduardo Galleano’s book The Open Veins of Latin America. Theses streams are currently seen as an inconvenient space, my proposal is to transform them into this landscape framework that will also create resilience and encourage economic development.
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REFLECTION
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At this stage in my design I really struggled to move forward for a while since it was very hard for me to find relevant theory of landscape architecture interventions in informal settlements. I found out about Gouverneur's theory but I was a bit reluctant of his ideas since I thought they were a bit too general, hard to implement in the complex topography of Medellin and focused on future informal settlements, while what I wanted to focus on was existing ones and their relation with the city and with future growth.
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Then I decided to use his ideas but adapt it to what was that I intended to do and so I came up with the concept of veins as a way to frame the existing city and the future growth of it. However, this vein idea was very complex and what I'm proposed is a very strong change in the way we think about cities, so I'm still a bit afraid of how it will be percieved.
REFLECTION ON PRACTICE
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More than a century after Olmsted envisioned the Emerald Necklace in Boston, our cities are still framed and designed with roads and buildings, and landscape still does not have an active role in the design and planning of cities. In the face of climate change and rapid urbanisation of the world we need to find more resilient and environmentally friendly ways of designing cities.
