Oscar Malaspina, Elizabeth Añaños and Claudia FloresThe creation, management, and conservation of urban public areas have always been topics of interest and concern within the architectural discipline. Despite the architectural concern for these issues, it is primarily the responsibility of local governments to ensure that their public areas are appropriately maintained and efficiently managed. In many Latin American cities, as well as in the cities of the so-called developed countries, there is great inequality in the development and maintenance of public areas. Policies regarding the management of public spaces fall last on municipal agendas, complete plans for public spaces have been left aside, and public construction investments are often only considered in times and places when they are of political interest.
Considering the inefficiency of the local governments, it becomes increasingly vital for the social health of a city to develop new ways in which to participate. Architects may act as involved members in a community, using their unique points of view to interpret the dynamics of a city, based on its material components. An architect acting as a SOCIAL LEADER not only constructs tangible objects, but also uses them as instruments that CONSTRUCTS SOCIAL PROCESSES.
Jamie Lerner, architect and ex-mayor of the city of Curitiba, develops an interesting concept in his book Urban Acupuncture (2003, published by IAAC). Lerner explains that “urban acupuncture” uses a simple “prick” to revitalize and stimulate ailing and exhausted areas of a city and its surroundings, just as traditional acupuncture works on human tissue. However, what happens when the goal is not to heal the “damaged tissue” of a city, but rather to stimulate the growth of the new and fragile developing tissue of a newly settled area? In these situations, what is needed is a catalyst, a “substance” to accelerate and supplement the developmental process. From this point of view, the “prick” which generates the RE-GENERATING and RE-VITALIZING RE-ACTION is an ineffective prescription, when what is actually needed is a “substance” to accelerate and stimulate the GENERATING and VITALIZING ACTION.
Urban Catalyst is the term that we have coined to define the small interventions that operate on the ACTION field of developing urban tissues. An urban catalyst stimulates and transforms an area by constructing an object in response to the analysis and understanding of an area and the existing dynamics within it. For success in this type of intervention, it is important to not only carry out the construction of the OBJECT, but also to do so in a way that includes the SUBJECT. In this sense, PARTICIPATION becomes and indispensable component in these initiatives. Only in this way can a material intervention, regardless of its esthetic value, have MEANINGFUL VALUE for the subjects who participate in its construction, thus encouraging them to feel ownership and responsibility over the management of the public space.
We decided to take on the challenge of developing a new way in which to participate in the development of a territory by means of an urban catalyst. Acknowledging our ability as architects to act as social leaders, interpreting and creating a city from its material components, and capable of constructing material objects with meaningful value from participatory social construction processes, we set out to an experience which led us to the construction of the URBAN TRIPTYCH in Pachacutec Citadel (Lima – Perú).