Alejandro Arango Escobar

OBJETIVO

The main question is: How to move from an infrastructure focused on production and optimization, to an infrastructure that focuses on the support of human and social capital and that, in turn, is capable of generating public-private partnerships for its programming and sustainability?
For example: How to go from a road infrastructure designed exclusively to meet logistical objectives (A-B connection) to a network of productive and sustainable corridors, with the capacity to:
(i) mitigate climate change, (ii) adapt to the geographical, social and cultural virtues of its context, and (iii) generate economic and social development?
“Traditionally, [road infrastructure] has been used to reinforce physical connectivity to improve the functioning of markets, or with a narrow focus, such as connecting mines or ports (...) But corridors can be used for initiatives of smarter planning, aimed at improving agricultural opportunities, achieving explicit goals such as (i) creating rural jobs, (ii) environmental goals, and (iii) catalyzing better governance along value chains, all of which are necessary to stimulate inclusive and sustainable growth in the developing world”.
This project served as a seed for the Colombian government to convert all the new CCO infrastructures to community centers in the rural regions of Colombia. All new highways in Colombia must develop community centers in accordance with the cultural and climatic characteristics of the regions through which they pass.

CONTEXTO

In recent years, a series of highways have been developed in Colombia that seek to unify the country, characterized by a mountainous geography and difficult access. This hard infrastructure is characterized by connecting ports and important cities, passing through regions that are poorly served by the state and of great poverty; the communities through which these highways pass do not receive much more than connectivity.
For this reason and at the initiative of the Mazzanti Team, a new type of communications and road operations infrastructure was presented to the Colombian state. These CCO centers usually only served as buildings connected to the highways and their operation; without any kind of relationship with the surrounding communities. The proposal included multiplying the use of the CCO control and communications buildings with training classrooms, a product collection center, a market place for products from the region, an open-air cinema and sports fields, making the CCOs no longer just structures designed for efficiency and become places for community building and improvement of the living conditions of the region's peasants.
The concept of the project has as its main intention the design of a social architecture capable of providing flexibility and diversity in the uses for its users, highlighting in turn the most representative elements and materials of Antioquia colonial architecture, as well as the diverse construction traditions of Antioquia. the region.
The architecture of the "floating box" that houses the social program, seeks to highlight the traditional work of wood in the region.