Urban Expression Platform

The project seeks to promote the exchange, interaction and manifestation of urban expressions, while integrating and adapting to a residual space generated by the existing infrastructure. Could we think of an architectural object that could rescue a residual space and operate as a platform for the development and recognition of urban expressions?

The project works as a triggering device of public life, identity and reactivation of residual spaces. Proposed as an intervention in a residual area derived from the current infrastructure, to demonstrate their potential as a strategy, in response to the segregation that they currently provoke in the city, as well as proposing new urbanization and development schemes for the contemporary city that would allow a better conformation and repair of the urban tissue. The intervention site is located inside the historical center of the city, which interacts with the following elements: a pedestrian street, "El Paseo Santa Lucia" a water body, two car overpasses, and a metro line. That said, three different user types must be included, the passerby, the visitor, and the protagonist, each of them having different experiences throughout the architectural object. The design process began by identifying the main limitations and conditioning factors, followed by making a selection of the design strategies the project would follow, transforming them into spaces for the manifestation and development of the different existing urban expressions, spaces for learning the techniques, and galleries inside an Urban Art Museum. As a result, a 17,000m² program consisting of platforms for visual plastic expressions and urban installations, as well as for oral and musical expression, including a performance stage. An observatory park conformed with multiple platforms, workshops, commerce, and a skate park in the esplanade. The platforms conform a continuous flow generating an experience through a public path, each one having a specific and designated purpose and activity, with the adequate amount of space, visuals, and surfaces. And finally, a 5-storey museum with a rooftop, containing art galleries, terraces, an auditorium, shops, workshops, administration and service areas, designed to allow a permeable communication with the context and a versatile program that keeps the user's interest through temporary and permanent exhibitions.