CULTURA

Placemaking and community engagement are ongoing concerns for the development of healthier and more inclusive cities. People move to cities looking for financial, social and political stability and by the year 2050, it is expected that two-thirds of the human population will be living in a city, spaces which represent beyond their physical infrastructures a multilayered complexity of human relations and interactions. This work aims to test the disruption possibilities of design, written language, and storytelling as tools to make evident the active role of individuals in the construction and development of their physical space. The objective of this project is to test design as a medium of positive activism to spark community creation. Through different experiments, I connect design thinking methods with the fields of storytelling and activism, in order to develop community-making processes. The concept of -The City- is approached from a scale perspective, from house, to neighbour, to district, to city, and points out the lack of interaction and communication among neighbours as one of the elements responsible of the insular lifestyle mode of today’s western societies. An issue which is playing a harmful effect in human health and politics. For the practical phase of the research, I chose a student accommodation building in the district of Deutz in the city of Cologne. A building initially characterized by the lack of care among its inhabitants but at the same time with the potential to become a hub for multicultural exchange. Concepts from psychology, architecture, storytelling, and language are intertwined through the research with the aim of making unknown individuals feel part of a group and envision a physical environment together. The same way as a narration the work is divided into three main phases: Reading cities, Writing cities and Re-reading cities. Through them, concepts of belonging and co-creation, are linked with the possibilities of design as a way of activism to become a tool to gradually change the perceptions of physical space and to build upon the idea of what is needed to design and who designs.

Abstract: The school buildings in Colombia are built based on geographical locations and regional construction systems. However, external weather conditions and building design can have a significant impact on the thermal comfort of students, which affects the academic performance and productivity. This paper investigates the thermal comfort performance for an educational building in a hot and humid city in Cucuta, Colombia, built under national guidelines. This school is a concrete structure without mechanical cooling. However, field observation discovered that 82% of the time students experienced thermal discomfort. To investigate causes and provide mitigation strategies, a whole building energy simulation is conducted. Design Builder is used to evaluate the indoor thermal conditions compared to outdoor data collected. ASHRAE 55 adaptative model is used for the evaluation. It is found that 79% of the time the thermal conditions are outside the acceptable range during the year. The effect of mitigation measures i.e., occupancy, roof insulation, and natural ventilation rates are investigated through simulations. It is found that occupancy and natural ventilation rate have a significant impact on the indoor temperature and relative humidity, and thus the thermal comfort. Passive design strategies are proposed in optimizing the school building design to meet ASHARE-55 requirements.

The auto-construction of dwellings in pirate urbanisations produces about 70% of low-income housing in Bogota. People with scarce resources, usually migrants from the countryside, opt to purchase an individual lot from a clandestine urbaniser that extra-legally subdivides terrains near the city boundaries. Ideally, in about 15 years span, self-builders progressively manage to construct a Casalote: a 3 to 4 storeys edifice, which provides them not only urban dwelling but also a considerable source of income. Casalotes progressively grow next to each other and eventually amalgamate into large, functional and vibrant urban pieces more or less integrated to the city's fabric. This work tries to trace the links between the emergence of informal urbanisations and the structure of the architectural-units generated along the process. It seeks to answer the question whether one can speak of architectural principles, actually determining the shape of "informal" buildings and urbanisations. It focuses on Bogota, a city that has incubated a systematic mode of land subdivision and edification outside the hegemonic planning system: Pirate urbanisation, or the process of emergence of informal urbanisations, and autoconstruction, or the edificatory product-means delivering actual housing solutions upon those urbanisations. The analysis comprehends three sections: (a) a discussion on the dipole "formal-informal". (b) A critical reading, at three different scales ("world", "cities", "Bogota"), of the legal, social, political, tectonic, and economic dimensions of the process. (c) A detailed description of a single Casalote and its neighbourhood in Bogota, observed between 2006 and 2012. This last section reconstructs the building as recounted by its inhabitants, in order to deconstruct it into its architectural components and, eventually, re-compose it in the form architectural principles.

Agriculture was the engine of growth for a more established communities, a symbol of progress that became an important step forward to a civilization. However, the growth of cities has been weakened the reciprocal relationships that existed between human settlements and farming. In Beijing’s green belt for instance, the urbanization phenomena colonized productive landscapes where farmland and nature areas have been replaced by dense cityscapes. Caochangdi village in northeast Beijing, illustrates a condition of a place which needs physical and social integration with the green belt where it is located. In this sense, this thesis describes a proposal that take advantage of Urban farming, bringing community together around food production, ecological practices and the capacity of environment transformation through the strategy based on The Continuous productive urban landscapes (CPULs). From this perspective, farming practice wherein an urban fringe context, pretends improve environmental and living conditions of their residents by recovering and adapting existing open areas that will work as a productive public spaces for them and also for people from metropolitan area, finding an alternative space to interact with agriculture but at the same time with people’s neighborhood. CPULs implementation will have the potential to be replicated along the green belt area through an agricultural infrastructure highly adaptive formed by scaffolding, integrating other settlements and recovering its former function towards a sustainable area. This will be part of dynamic of daily resident’s life, with the aim of building community identity and raising social cohesion among them and metropolitan people that visit and use the new area improved by urban farming. La agricultura fue el motor de crecimiento para comunidades más consolidadas, un símbolo de progreso que se convirtió en un gran paso hacia la civilización. Sin embargo, el crecimiento de las ciudades ha debilitado la relación reciproca que existía entre los asentamientos humanos y la agricultura. En el cinturón verde de Beijing por ejemplo, el fenómeno de la urbanización colonizó paisajes productivos donde áreas naturales y de cultivo han sido reemplazados por paisajes densos de ciudad. Villa Caochangdi al noreste de Beijing, ilustra la condición de un lugar que necesita una integración física y social al cinturón verde donde se encuentra ubicada. En este sentido, la esta tesis describe una propuesta que se aprovecha de la agricultura urbana, reuniendo a la comunidad alrededor de la producción de alimento, prácticas ecológicas y la capacidad de transformación del medio ambiente a través de la estrategia basada en Paisajes productivos continuos urbanos (CPULs). Desde está perspectiva, la practica de la agricultura en los limites urbanos, pretende mejorar las condiciones ambientales y de vida de sus residentes, recuperando y adaptando espacios abiertos existentes que servirían como espacios públicos productivos para ellos y para las personas del área metropolitana que visitarían y usarían las nuevas zonas mejoradas por la agricultura urbana.

Costado occidental del Edificio Pedro A. López, ubicado sobre el costado sur de la Avenida Jiménez, entre carreras 7 (Séptima) y 8 (octava). Este edificio fue diseñado por Robert M. Farrington y construido por Fred. T. & Company, por encargo del empresario Pedro A. López para la sede de su banco. En 1923, tras caer en quiebra, el banco Pedro A. López fue adquirido por el Banco de la República, que tuvo allí su sede hasta mediados del siglo XX.

Abstract: Emotional Nature is a hands-on learning experience and toolkit that connects different tangible and intangible tools for educators to visualise, grasp and engage in a dialogue with emotions in relation to materials. The Emotional Nature toolkit is also a temporary safe space for educators and children to motivate their understanding of emotions, as well as meaningful connections with nature. The learning is enhanced through a creative and fun process combining tools like value cards, storytelling, meditation, natural inks, and mainly wood-based biomaterials. Having regular contact and meaningful connections with nature have several benefits for humans from playful learning to wellbeing, from bonding relations with other beings to inner self. This research is focused on the specific relationships between emotions and materials, and it is supported by a bigger academic context - The CHEMARTS strategy. The research process is designed in response to the main findings from the initial exploratory phase of Emotional Nature. First, biomaterials as a key tool to feel nature, as well as express and materialise emotions; second, the difficulties in dealing with emotions in the classroom; and third, the reduced availability of safe and comfortable spaces to share and transform emotions in Finnish educational context. This study is an explorative approach based on self-experimentation and participatory design research practices done mainly with teachers and field experts. The research design seeks to inspire educators to explore and grasp relationships between emotions and nature through the experimentation with biomaterials and diverse tools in Finnish School Context. The main audience for Emotional Nature Learning Experience are educators of children between 10 and 13 years old. However, based on the co-creation sessions with different populations, such as parents and postgraduate students, the hands-on learning experience also proved to beeffective for other age groups and settings.

Abstract: The marketplaces of Bogotá are facing a decrease in frequency and a stiff competition against supermarket chains. In addition, the problems are related to various historical events, conceptions, and social and cultural changes that the city and its inhabitants have had since it’s beginning. The extinction of these spaces would endanger the disappearance of a part of the cultural identity of Colombians. In addition, it’s a space in the city where there is an interaction of all social classes, it is also the bearer of the country's local food and therefore carries part of the gastronomical heritage, which depends of the basic family basket of the country. This directly affects the rural economy, especially farmers and low-income people. Seeing this problem, my intention is to reach a solution through an architectural proposal that aims to recover the intangible cultural heritage of the marketplaces. With an urban-architectural design of a new market conception located in the neighborhood of Usaquén at the north of Bogotá, the objective is to create an urban detonator that transforms the dynamics of this sector by changing the mentality of its citizens about the conception they usually have about the markets; generate social sustainability in terms of the fight against social segregation; generate economic sustainability by competing directly with supermarket chains, directly supporting the rural economy; and finally creating a sustainable design of the building with an emphasis on the collection of rainwater and the use of solar panels.

Resumen: La Piscina Romano es una piscina al aire libre tradicional de la ciudad de Milán, construida en el año 1920, que funciona solo en los meses de verano y luego se vacía y se cierra durante el resto del año. Mi objetivo ha sido crear una instalación de parque temporal dentro del área de la piscina, para volverla útil en meses en que está vacía. El complejo balnear está ubicado en un área central de la ciudad de Milán, en una zona residencial y predominantemente universitaria, con una importante presencia del de Milán. La Piscina Romano tiene un área de 17.400m2 aprox. y sólo un 29% de su área es funcional durante todo el año. El estado actual de este complejo balnear es un espacio totalmente fragmentado y desarticulado, de áreas abandonadas y sub-utilizadas, que quise integrar y refuncionalizar dentro del proyecto de parque temporal. La idea de crear un parque surgió con la intención de ampliar el parque de juegos de la piscina Romano hacia la piscina grande. Partiendo del concepto “La piscina que se convierte en parque”, luego también hice lo contrario, es decir, “el parque que se convierte en piscina”, esto quiere decir que el área de juego actual se ha convertido en una especie de piscina metafórica. De esta manera, los integré, pero también creé una ambigüedad entre uno y otro, disolviendo los límites entre ellos y produciendo un único espacio recreativo, dentro de una paradoja: no un parque y una piscina, sino un parque acuático y recreativo. Diseñé una obra de street painting en el suelo de todo el complejo para crear una metáfora. Los gráficos del suelo inundaron todo el balneario e integraron todas las piezas. En el edificio de vestieres decidí en cambio, crear un parque cubierto para permitir que la dinámica social alrededor del área de juegos al aire libre continúe desarrollándose a pesar del frío, y para que los niños, padres y ancianos tengan un lugar de encuentro cómodo en los meses más fríos del año. Por otro lado, quería retomar el complejo escultórico “Los Baños Misteriosos” de Giorgio De Chirico, actualmente ubicado en la Trienal de Milán, trasladándolo a la Piscina Romano como parte del proyecto de parque temporal, agregando valor al parque. Finalmente, lo que había imaginado como un parque de estación se convirtió en un dispositivo permanente. Las esculturas adquirieron un papel protagónico y el proyecto se convirtió en un escenario para exhibirlas. El resultado es una especie de parque acuático y recreativo, pero con esculturas valiosas.

Abstract: This paper describes and explores practices of digital products associated with learning and education in architecture, practices of project design techniques (conception, realization, durability), designed and executed in order to generate processes, forms and visual content inappropriate to two historical modes of capitalism, the industrial and the cognitive, and their concomitant economies of work and attention. The practices were developed during the second semester of 2019 and the first semester of 2020, in two project design workshops of the School of Architecture and Habitat of the Jorge Tadeo Lozano University of Bogotá. The objective is articulated with the approaches of the thematic table "Production, consumption and dissemination of educational audiovisual content in the digital medium. Learning and practice in the environment of cognitive capitalism", through the problems that it raises, namely, the possibility of generating visual content that is inappropriate for the consumer uses favored by cognitive capitalism and industrial capitalism. This, through practices of products sustained by those same modes of capitalism, which, moreover, sustain an epistemological model to which an orientation of disciplinary learning corresponds, as well as a repertoire of student and professional habits. The epistemological model is that of "conception / realization", in which the distinction between the processes that correspond to each of the terms of this (conception - realization), is essential; model to which corresponds an economy of work commonly called "chain work", in addition to an economy of attention that we will call "executive attention" and that is particularly named "entertainment" by some authors. The referred work economy is the characteristic of industrial capitalism, while the indicated attention economy is tributary to cognitive capitalism. Resumen: El presente documento sustenta, describe y explora, prácticas de productos digitales asociadas al aprendizaje y a la educación en arquitectura, esto es, prácticas de técnicas de diseño de proyecto (concepción, realización, durabilidad), pensadas y ejecutadas con el fin de generar procesos, formas y contenidos visuales inadecuados a dos modos históricos del capitalismo, el industrial y el cognitivo, y a sus economías concomitantes, la del trabajo y la de la atención. Las prácticas enunciadas se desarrollaron durante el segundo semestre del 2019 y el primer semestre del 2020, en dos talleres de diseño de proyectos de la Escuela de Arquitectura y Hábitat de la Universidad deBogotá Jorge Tadeo Lozano. El objetivo del presente trabajo descrito se articula con los planteamientos de la mesa temática “Producción, consumo y difusión de contenidos audiovisuales educativos en el medio digital. Aprendizaje y práctica en el entorno del capitalismo cognitivo”, mediante la problemática que losuscita, a saber, la posibilidad de generar contenidos visuales inadecuados a los usos consumistas favorecidos por el capitalismo cognitivo y el capitalismo industrial. Esto, a través de prácticas de productos sostenidos por esos mismos modos del capitalismo, los cuales, por demás, sostienen unmodelo epistemológico al cual corresponden una orientación del aprendizaje disciplinar, así comoun repertorio de hábitos estudiantiles y profesionales. El modelo epistemológico es el de “concepción / realización”, en el cual la distinción entre los procesos que corresponden a cada uno de los términos de este (concepción – realización), es capital; modelo al cual corresponde una economía del trabajo denominada comúnmente “trabajo en cadena”, además de una economía de la atención que llamaremos “atención ejecutiva” y que particularmente es nombrada por Algunos autores “entretenimiento”. La economía del trabajo referida es la característica del capitalismo industrial, mientras que la economía de la atención señalada es tributaria del capitalismo cognitivo.