Urban intervention workshop in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Nueva Pompeya with students from the Facultad de Arquitectura, Diseño y Urbanismo de la Universidad de Buenos Aires.

Carried out within the framework of the International Exchange Program “Urban Acupuncture” that seeks to create links between universities and groups of architects to become a space for learning and action-reflection on the contemporary city.

Activity included within the XIII International Architecture Biennial of Buenos Aires.
With the support of the PLOT Arquitectura magazine and the Cultural Office of the Spanish Embassy in Argentina.

To build the public space should be a public matter, The 7 Magnificent from Pompeya proposes a collaborative process with the Nueva Pompeya neighborhood in Buenos Aires to co-design the activation of their public space in a participatory way and using language, iconography of the neigborhood name and playing as a pretext for the construction of a transformable furniture system with the triple scale of the identity and iconicity of the word, the playful and the program for public use.

CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS:

The workshop was developed in three phases:

Initially, a participatory research work is carried out using dissemination and enrollment through a call-casting for the selection of seven residents of Pompeya who are part of the co-design process that will allow the public space to be given a shared individual identity.

In a second phase, the tools developed will be instrumentalized by developing a catalog of programs and potential materials to equip the public space. The participants in the workshop will design the constructive systems and competitive mechanisms that make the three mentioned scales possible.

Lastly, a complete prototype is projected, which is manufactured in a workshop, transported and operated in the public space of the Nueva Pompeya neighborhood.

CATALOG OF LETTERS AND USES:

The objectives of the workshop were:

– Develop non-conventional or formal urban analysis capabilities.
– Rehearse participatory methodologies and protocols for linking with the city through identity and action.
– Develop co-design processes.
– Manage resources: low-cost, recycling, DIY (do it yourself) and DIWO (do it with others) processes.
– Develop a complete small-scale project from conceptualization, design and production design to prototyping.
– Build to scale 1: 1.

The participants in the workshop developed and materialized a final prototype that was based on three conditions: it was a large urban sign that iconically embodied the name of the neighborhood, it was a reconfigurable and physical alphabet that allowed playing to build new words, it was a public use equipment contained and deployable from each letter or set of letters, something like the Hollywood sign unfolds to constitute one (or several) filming sets.

ACTION AND URBAN INTERVENTION:

A project by David Pérez / PKMN [pac-man] Architectures with the support of Javier Gorodner and Ainhoa ​​Mugetti.

Students: Tomás Martínez, Alberto Dumas, Bernardita Arieu, Natalia del Giudice, Pablo Sebastián Galli, Martin Zlobec, Clara de Stefano, Olivia Siegrist, Cecilia Boehler, Tomás Della Vecchia, Noelia García Lofredo, Liselotte Paix and Iris Jasson.

Photographs: PKMN [pac-man] Architectures and Javier Gorodner.
September 2011
Nueva Pompeya, Buenos Aires [Argentina]