Protective Canopy in Colombia

Landscape revitalization and botanical pavilion

Protective Canopy in Colombia

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    Protective Canopy in Colombia

    Steel cables that rest on the slope of the mountain from end to end, are hung forming a catenary by a light of 130 meters. A single cover that protects the exotic and natural collections chosen for being the most representative ecosystems of the Colombian regions. The native collection of the mountain slope, continues and pierces the building by means of strips of trees.

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    Holcim Awards Next Generation prize handover, Códoba, Argentina - September 2022

    Presentation to Next Generation 4th prize winners for Latin America (l-r): Laura Viscovich, Holcim Foundation (Switzerland), Jhon Salazar Ruiz, Juan Camilo Muñoz and Lina Fernanda Valencia Lozano, students at the University of Valle, Cali, Colombia and Loreta Castro Reguera, Taller Capital (Mexico) and Head of the Holcim Awards jury for Latin America.

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    Protective Canopy in Colombia

    The project intention (recover the silhouette of the mountain and the project can only made by steel) is very attach with the structure. The structure is made of two cables suspended from the ends of the mountains by means of expansion anchors, between the anchors the structure also has tensioners, which are responsible for preventing differences in air pressure and winds from raising the cover. The cover is made by ETFE bubbles that give rigidity and solution to the evacuation of rainwater.

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    Protective Canopy in Colombia

    In the middle of the mountain, a mining footprint is transformed into a botanical pavilion.

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    Protective Canopy in Colombia

    Tensioners give stability to the roof and define the educational and research program of the building

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    Protective Canopy in Colombia

    The route is born in the Mangle and ascends until reaching the Páramo in danger by illegal mining.

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    Protective Canopy in Colombia

    The building, understood as a piece of city, seeks to create links between the urban and the natural.

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    Protective Canopy in Colombia

    On the left the deterioration of the park is evidenced, with the greenhouse the recovery of its.

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    Protective Canopy in Colombia

    The educational program coexists with the natural forest that recovers its space in the mountain.

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    Protective Canopy in Colombia

    Architectural strategies to relate the activity to the landscape and a journey through biodiversity.

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    Protective Canopy in Colombia

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    Protective Canopy in Colombia

    Jhon Janer Salazar Ruiz, Juan Camilo Muñoz, and Lina Fernanda Valencia Lozano

  • Next generation Next Generation 4th prize 2020–2021 Latin America
Designed as a response to ecological degradation, this project aspires to heal a damaged landscape and reconnect people with nature through education, recreation, and architectural beauty. It transforms a former extraction site in Bogotá into a vibrant, living pavilion—celebrating Colombia’s biodiversity and creating a new kind of public space.

By Juan Camilo Muñoz, Lina Fernanda Valencia Lozano, Jhon Janer Salazar Ruiz

Located in the Entre Nubes Ecological Park, on the southeastern hills of Bogotá—an area long impacted by illegal mining and informal housing—the botanical pavilion introduces a light architectural intervention that blends restoration with public engagement. The structure reshapes the excavated mountain through a suspended system of 130-metre-long steel catenaries, anchored with vertical tensioners to stabilise the form.

Protective Canopy in Colombia

Project authors

  • Protective Canopy in Colombia
    Juan Camilo Muñoz

    Colombia

  • Protective Canopy in Colombia
    Lina Fernanda Valencia Lozano

    Colombia

  • Protective Canopy in Colombia
    Jhon Janer Salazar Ruiz

    Colombia

Project Summary

A translucent roof of ETFE cushions spans the cables, protecting the collections of native and exotic plants below. Volumes of glass and metal house diverse vegetation drawn from Colombian ecosystems, while open-air paths and gathering spaces alternate with planted zones to create a rhythm of learning and leisure.

Protective Canopy in Colombia

The route is born in the Mangle and ascends until reaching the Páramo in danger by illegal mining.

More than a greenhouse, the pavilion becomes a pedagogical landscape—an accessible space where visitors of all ages can learn about ecological restoration, the fragility of urban nature, and the value of biodiversity. It offers a powerful model for how architecture can contribute to the environmental and cultural regeneration of metropolitan areas.

Project Authors

  • Juan Camilo Muñoz

    University of Valle

    Colombia

  • Lina Fernanda Valencia Lozano

    University of Valle

    Colombia

  • Jhon Janer Salazar Ruiz

    University of Valle

    Colombia

Jury Appraisal

The Holcim Foundation Awards jury for Latin America was fascinated by this determined yet gentle architectural gesture, which seeks to heal a landscape scarred by mining exploitation. The silhouette of the pavilion was seen as elegant, and the message it conveys—powerfully restorative. The jury commended the project’s ambition to not only protect biodiversity but also to create a public educational space for the city of Bogotá.

Protective Canopy in Colombia

The project intention (recover the silhouette of the mountain and the project can only made by steel) is very attach with the structure. The structure is made of two cables suspended from the ends of the mountains by means of expansion anchors, between the anchors the structure also has tensioners, which are responsible for preventing differences in air pressure and winds from raising the cover. The cover is made by ETFE bubbles that give rigidity and solution to the evacuation of rainwater.

The structural and construction elements of the greenhouse were considered highly appropriate and thoughtfully resolved, with a program that is both well-organised and efficient. Overall, the jury praised the greenhouse pavilion for its sensitive and convincing integration into the landscape, and for the sophisticated, compelling architecture that celebrates ecology and regeneration.

Project Updates

Statements on Sustainability

  • The Entre Nubes district park is home to a wide variety of fauna and flora, a natural reserve where seven streams flow into the Tunjuelo River, one of the three main rivers that crosses and cleans the city of Bogotá. The mining footprint has left large environmental scars or (quarries) that threaten to devour the city's most important mountain ecosystem. The project, instead of a space for research, dissemination and protection of biodiversity, proposes to link human relations with its surroundings, recovering the silhouette of the mountain and the urban border between the city and the park that has destabilized the relationship between the urban landscape and natural landscape.

  • The excavation of the brickworks in the natural soil, has created a concavity in the mountain that makes it possible to fit the building in the mining footprint. The implantation of the building seeks to have the least possible environmental impact on the mountain and the terrain, a series of steel cables are supported by the slope of the mountain from end to end, they hang by forming a series of catenaries that cover a light of 130 meters. To give stability to the roof, a series of tensioners are proposed that anchor the catenaries to the floor by thin steel tensioners that carefully penetrate the ground and delimit the program in the different spaces destined for the community, dissolving the city-mountain limit being a public, cultural and educational equipment.

  • A single roof raised in ETFE, a type of thermoplastic polymer with high resistance to heat and UV rays, as well as reducing CO2 emissions, essential for a greenhouse pavilion that protects the exotic and native collections chosen because they are the most representative ecosystems in the different Colombian regions and those most threatened by desertification and exploitation of natural resources. The native collection of the slope of the mountain, surrounds the four collections or exotic biomes. In turn, it perforates the building and the roof by means of strips of trees that create patios inside the building. The yards help to collect rainwater by creating a filtration process for water reuse in the project. The place recovers the natural balance of the ecosystem.