PARQUE POZON

CONSTRUCTED PUBLIC SPACE

Just outside the bounding walls of Cartagena, a group of women in the financially destitute neighborhood of El Pozon joined forces to take charge of their community. Together they raised enough funds to provide the materials to construct a shared community space, ideally one that would provide a flood-resistant meeting area and a play area for their chidren. Our group of volunteers spent three weeks traveling and researching public space typologies in Colombia,with just one week to implement our ideas in both design and construction. Our first day in El Pozon, I personally organized and led a design collaboration workshop with the community. By the fourth day, our design team decided upon a structural axis that optimizes available materials and allows for the addition of future program components. Each of the twelve componenents is tailored to a need expressed by local citizens, from raised gathering spaces to furniture that converts into soccer equipment. We then drew a construction manual with the intention of locals having the clear instructions and agency to complete the remaining construction without our assistance. When our work reached national news outlets and eventually the attention of the mayor of Cartagena, we were fortunately invited to present our work and provide the city with copies of the design manual to be implemented throughout the region.

El Pozon, Cartagena, Colombia | Summer 2016

In Collaboration with Alina Ahmad, Michelle Chew, Wesley Chiang, Denisse Guevara, Margarida Mota, Asia Ptak, Nya Wilkins, Xuanlei Wu, Desmond Wu, and Qinyi Zhai

Advised by Eduardo Rega Calvo and Juan Ricardo Rincon Gaviria