Water is the hot topic among the project entries for the Holcim Awards in region Latin America. Whether for wastewater, drinking water, or tidal water, many of the prize winners have innovative and often surprising proposals for ways to master the use of this precious resource in Latin America.

A project-as-process, the plan for an eastern suburb of San José envisions the city in coexistence with its flora and fauna. The project overlays several networks of interventions. The current parks are rehabilitated and some transformed into new wetlands for flood mitigation. Roads double their function to act as “biocorridors” linking parks and forests particularly for pollinators that bring great benefits for biodiversity. Punctural interventions for meeting points and cultural facilities at the neighborhood level are realized through participatory planning and renovation. Together, the discrete layers reconfigure the habitat of flora, fauna, and human beings as “citizens” of Curridabat. 

Habitat and infrastructure: Sustainable cities and communities

With increasing urban development and population growth, the city as a platform for development and the citizenry as the population that inhabits this platform have experienced a decline in the quality of their interactions with other living species. This is crucial for the livability and wellness of the habitat, as well as for the consolidation of a collective moral standing that has an impact on some of the global challenges that are pressing issues in Curridabat, such as climate change and the threat of endangered species, thermic comfort, inequity in the access to public space and natural amenities, and connectivity. The Central Valley of Costa Rica, where Curridabat is located, is highly fertile to biodiversity, enclosed by important biological corridors, its rivers and mountains.