Cesar Silva and Hugo Chauwin − ESA, Paris


Cesar Silva and Hugo Chauwin (Winners of Best Diploma Project) − ESA, Paris


Tutors: Dr Marie Aquilino, Michael Halter

Ciudad Evolutiva
“Experimenting social and urban integration of informal settlements”

This joint project experiments with the social and urban integration of informal settlements in the capital city Caracas, Venezuela. Looking at the world’s major cities, early research identified that the function of local amenities in underprivileged areas far outstripped simple notions of community service. They restructure the organisation of public life and effectively redirect social relations. They become instruments of local redevelopment; critical markers of social identity; and strategic resources that help manage the social ills of drug-use, boredom, and violence.

Working with local actors, this proposal creates interventions into the barrios of Caracas to address a variety of local needs at a range of scales, fighting against urban isolation and reconnecting to the formal city. Each site takes on the role of an impulse that implicates community members in their construction and re-use. These amenities can evolve, go quiet, and transform according to the needs and interests of the residents over time. This sort of intervention invites disadvantaged populations to appropriate a new urban tool, one that creates energy in and around the site, while at the same time generating new economic opportunities.