The Macro Manzana project of the Cardenal José Mariá Caro community forms part of, born in 2006, “Quiero mi barrio” national neighborhood recovery program of Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, which seeks to strengthen physical and social initiatives in vulnerable sectors. Those initiatives are developed through an active process of citizen participation, in which the community defines its wishes regarding the infrastructure of its neighborhood, which become the foundation and guidelines of the project.

Our office is involved in this process in the design stage and development of the details of engineering projects proposed by the community.

The project is conditioned by the existing program, which is made up of different types of facilities, including social headquarters, two kindergartens and a large itinerant fair, which is fundamental element for the community equipment.

In this programmatic context and considering deterioration of the existing public space, the project materializes in a path that alternates between circulation and permanence, which articulate and unifies different programs that embrace Macro Manzana. Moreover this operation protect pedestrian, segregating them from cars.

Within the designed path, the permanence areas serve as an access to the equipment buildings and through the application of color on pavement, reflect a desire of the community to have spaces with own identity and character.

In that way, this new sequence of squares allows an interaction of inhabitants and their relationship with activities that occur in their neighborhood, where the access to the kindergarten and community mural stands out as a symbolic gesture and gives meaning of the significance of the intervention.

Material Used:

1. Yellow gravel

2. Concrete pavement

3. Cement microvibrated tile

4. Cement microvibrated podotactile tile

5. Cement curbe

6. Native trees (Jacarandá, Quillay)