Barranquilla a conversion project of ribera occidental ex-productive area | Roberta Mavilia

Barranquilla is a Colombian city located along the “rio Magdalena” river . Its name derives from “barranqa”, that’s means swoop, rapid slope. In fact,  the city is developed as a slope and its many  and heavy  rains create the so called “arroyos”, streams that are dangerous for the people and for the environment. In addition, Barranquilla is a city closed in a sort of great infrastructural ring that doesn’t allow a good relationship between the city center  and its river, where now are located many industrial companies.
Architect: Roberta Mavilia
Country: Italy 

The purpose of this project thesis, set in a dense area of industrial activities and located close to “via 40” (infrastructural ring)and along an “arroyo”, is to stitch up this difficult relationship, with a double action: on the one hand it inherits existent signs, tissues and morphologies, resetting the productive sheds;  on the other hand it introduces new elements and functions, that become real “CONTEXT ACTIVATOR”.

The residential units, made of a successions of steel portals, are linked  to the existent productive sheds with a pedestrian path on various levels that connects public squares and services, relational and commercial spaces. Other punctual elements, such as rows of trees, parks, farm fields, energy roofs, vertical greenhouses, water tanks, phytopurification tanks, complete the new use of the area, responding to a METABOLIC (products and waste cycles), AMBIENTAL  AND ENERGY  working principle, that allows to the area to lives individually.