“A novel network of public facilities attached to either existing or new telecommunication towers”

Whether camouflaged or in plain view, mobile telephone telecommunication antennas are spreading across cities worldwide. Questioning their mono-functionality, the project’s authors argue in favor of a strategy that would open up infrastructure to a broad palette of functions that could benefit communities, specifically those with insufficient public amenities. The design thus seeks to generate a novel network of public facilities attached to either existing or new telecommunication towers – appropriately so in Medellín, Colombia, a city undoubtedly open to innovation.

The jury highly praised the idea of an infrastructure that could perform more than a single function and particularly commended the project’s underlying proposition to transform antennas into multipurpose nodes within Medellín’s city fabric. Of particular interest, as noted by the jury, is the integration of a range of low-technology measures aimed at improving the environmental performance of entire city sectors – whether concerning the production of energy, the retention of rainwater, or the collection of household waste.