“Urbanization processes in harmony with nature” – Holcim Awards Jury

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    Project entry 2014 Latin America – Fruit Salad: Riverside urban infrastructure redeployment, Manaus, Brazil

    A: 1. Move to the river all the activities currently performed on the banks; 2. Create an urban park to connect the city to the river; 3. Intermingle the architectural trends and link them to the city. B. Flooding is the main current problem; the river level varies by 14m between the dry and rainy seasons. As a solution, the project proposes a floodable park on the bank and the activities currently performed on the banks are relocated on a floating platform, optimizing their development.

The jury greatly appreciates the idea to conceive of a project as a reflection on an important subject matter – in this case, the question of how to inhabit the region without disrupting its ecosystem. Addressing urbanization processes in harmony with nature, the investigation deploys design as a means to explore the role of markets as a form of common infrastructure along waterways and riverbanks. The market platform – a kind of architectural “fruit salad” mixing manifold everyday activities – is intended to take on the role of an agent nurturing public and civic life in the vast territory of the Amazon Basin.

Last updated: July 05, 2014 San José, Costa Rica

The jury greatly appreciates the idea to conceive of a project as a reflection on an important subject matter – in this case, the question of how to inhabit the region without disrupting its ecosystem. Addressing urbanization processes in harmony with nature, the investigation deploys design as a means to explore the role of markets as a form of common infrastructure along waterways and riverbanks. The market platform – a kind of architectural “fruit salad” mixing manifold everyday activities – is intended to take on the role of an agent nurturing public and civic life in the vast territory of the Amazon Basin.

This submission was initially developed as a thesis project at the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Argentina, based on a workshop conducted in Manaus, Brazil in 2012. A number of proposals were subsequently developed by different student groups with similar program components on the same site and comparable architectural solutions.