Cub-huertas. A participatory architectural project for the Villa 31 in Buenos Aires

Por qué Buenos Aires? This is actually the first question every Argentinian person asks to an European citizen. Why did you decide to come to Buenos Aires ? Replying to this question has never been easy neither for me nor for all the other people I met in the Southern Emisphere. Once an European goes to South America, he is immediately projected to another dimension and Argentina and, in particular, Buenos Aires respects this concept. Argentina is a complex country. First of all, its cities present a completely different urban context from the european one: skyscrapers rule the city’s skyline and the main concept I would relate to the Argentinian urban context, and in particular to Buenos Aires’ one, is disorder. There is not a specific rule generating the architecture of the city; we can easily find a single family house next to a fourty floors tower. This is the main characteristics defining the architecture and the urban panorama of the city. On the other hand, Buenos Aires is the city of contrast. This word perfectly explains the human, political and architectural being of this stunning city. As I stated before, the architecture of the city is a symbol of its contrast between one style and another one. If we take, for example, in account the main square of the city (Plaza de Mayo) we will immediately notice the presence of historical buildings next to new skyscrapers which do not respect the historical and urban context of the previous ones. They do not have the same idea of the city as we have in Europe; they live in continuous developing cities and this is the reason why we can not find any kind of specific context; if we compare this approach to our point of view, we immediately percieve a “lack” of attention in considering the development of the city as they do. In fact, even designing in this kind of context sounds different because we have to adapt our conceiving and designing skills to a completely different mentality in terms of construction and design. Of course, the historical backgrounds are different and history played different roles in both countries so that we, as european architects, are used to percieve architecture always considering the historical and contextual panorama affecting the city, whereas in South America we face a great attention to the “evolving city” which is continuously growing and architecture follows this rythm. Buenos Aires is the city of contrast. We can find many different situations that perfectly explain this word. To better understand this idea of contrast, the best and the most emblemathic example defining this concept is represented by the relationship between the city and its informal settlements: las villas. Buenos Aires counts with a great variety of villas which are mainly concentrated at the edges of the city, at the border with the suburban areas. These settlements are typical of fast growing cities which found themselves in a continuous and quick development that nobody was able to manage, from an urban and a political point of view. If we consider Argentina’s History, in fact, we can immediately notice that the creation of most of Buenos Aires’ informal settlements coincide with specific stages affecting the political panorama at the same time. This thesis wants to stress on this important and totally actual theme in order to understand the origin of informal settlements, their relationship with the city and the way to cohexist with them. The thesis focuses its attention on the main informal settlement of the city of Buenos Aires: the Villa 31. Its origin starts with the great immigration: at the beginning, the villa 31 (or villa miseria), was concieved as a temporary accomodation for those workers who had to travel and work in the industrial area. So, the Villa 31 was supposed to be dismantled at a certain point; the result is that we can still notice and feel the great presence of the informal settlement defining a new image of the city of Buenos Aires. In the thesis, I will explain the relationship between the city and the villa, the impact it has on the city and the possible intervention from an architectural point of view. The analysis of the informal settlement starts at first from the inner core of the city of Buenos Aires; so there will be explained all the elements composing the city and creating its image so that we will notice that a great similarity between the villa and the city will be evident in therms of organisation and images. Dealing with informal dwellings always means considering many important factors. First of all, to understand an informal dwelling it is important to phisically see it, to know and to listen to people living there. Second of all, an informal dwelling will never accept rules: its informality is its main characteristic and it can be easily recognized by looking at its constructions, its internal organisation and its approach to the city. So this is the reason why it would be always recommended to proceed without dismantelling the existing constructions but by providing the settlement with all the needs lacking. Then, an informal settlement has to be respected and improved according to its necessities by studying its urban pattern, its relationship with the city and its functions. These are the main steps I considered by approaching for the first time an informal settlement. The attention of the thesis is focused on the villa 31 because it presents several important urban situations that make it unique: on one hand we can appreciate the great presence of Recoleta’s skyscrapers (one of the richest neighborhoods of the city), on the other hand the Retiro station marks the great border between the end of the formal city and the beginning of the villa and its northern part is surrounded by the industrial area and the port of the city. Everything is framed by the presence of the highway connecting the city to the outskirts. The Villa 31, in fact, is a challenge not only from an architectural point of view, but also from an urban and social context because all these elements play an important role in defining the informal settlement and its relationship with the city. Finally, the aim of the work is to underline the importance of informal settlements in order to stress the attention on them and to avoid not considering their presence, because this phenomenon is going to be even more present in many cities of the world. This theme, in fact, was the main topic of the last Venice Biennale (2016) curated by Alejandro Aravena who stressed on the importance of dealing with these urban portions because they are a contemporary topic. The Venice Biennale aimed at explaining all those cases which looked beyond the traditional point of view and dealt with the “borders of the city”. As Aravena explains, in fact, “these places are the result of economic and political processes; their origin comes from a lack of interest in them. Their shapes are a casuality’s output and they can affect the city in many different ways.” The Venice Biennale was a wake-up call introducing and representing this important topic because, as I mentioned before, it represents one of the most important topics affecting the cities we live nowadays. The process of analysis includes several reference projects which have been used as guidelines in order to understand and to deal with informal dwellings, so that the thesis will also include a references’ part where figures such as Lina Bo Bardi and Giancarlo Mazzanti have been analysed through the process of design and personalities like Clorindo Testa have been helpful to understand the city of Buenos Aires and its relationship with architecture.

"Perchè Buenos Aires?"Questa è la prima domanda a cui ogni cittadino Europeo è sottoposto una volta arrivato nell'emisfero Sud. "Perché hai deciso di venire a Buenos Aires?" Questa è stata una delle domande più difficili a cui, né io, né la maggior parte dei miei colleghi europei, abbiamo saputo rispondere durante il soggiorno in Argentina. Infatti, una volta che un Europeo approda nell'emisfero meridionale è immediatamente proiettato verso una realtà completamente differente che l’Argentina e , in particolare, Buenos Aires rispettano. L’Argentina è un paese complesso. Innanzi tutto, le sue città presentano un contesto urbano completamente distinto dal panorama europeo. Infatti, lo skyline delle città argentine è prettamente definito dalla presenza di grattacieli, e il termine che assegnerei ai loro contesti urbani e, in particolare, a quello di Buenos Aires è “disordine”. Non c’è infatti una regola che definisce il contesto della città Argentina, poiché è semplice trovare una “family-house” al lato di un grattacielo che presenta trenta piani. Questa è la caratteristica principale delle città Sudamericane: il disordine. La città di Buenos Aires è definita dal termine “contrasto”; questa parola, infatti, definisce perfettamente lo stato politico, economico, sociale e architettonico della città. L’esempio che racconta al meglio questa situazione di contrasto all’interno della città è il grande contrasto rappresentato dalla città stessa e i suoi insediamenti informali: le “villas”. La città, infatti, conta un numero elevato di quartieri informali che sono prevalentemente concentrati ai bordi della città, ai confini con la periferia. Questi insediamenti sono tipici delle città in rapido sviluppo e, se osserviamo la storia Argentina, è chiara una diretta relazione tra alcuni avvenimenti storici che hanno segnato il paese e l’avvento di fasi di migrazione all’interno della città. Questi periodi, infatti sono stati fondamentali per la creazione dei quartieri informali della città. Questa tesi vuole sottolineare l’importanza di questo attuale e problematico tema che sta influenzando molte città nel mondo, e capire l’origine e le problematiche di questi insediamenti all’interno delle città contemporanee. La Villa 31 è il quartiere informale più importante di Buenos Aires: la sua posizione strategica ha permesso all’area di svilupparsi rapidamente durante gli anni della crisi economica grazie all’avvento di immigranti europei e sudamericani che hanno iniziato a insidiarsi all’interno del quartiere. Nasce come un quartiere provvisorio, voluto dal governo per ospitare quei lavoratori che vivevano nella periferia della città, ma lavoravano nella zona portuaria. La tesi si sofferma sull’analisi della Villa 31 dal punto di vista urbano, architettonico, e sociale, in modo da capire la sua relazione con la città e viceversa. Questa analisi, infatti, nasce innanzi tutto dal cuore della città di Buenos Aires, dagli elementi che la compongono e dalla sua evoluzione per capire la relazione che la città e il suo insediamento informale hanno avuto durante il corso storico e come ora coesistono. Per analizzare un insediamento informale non basta studiarlo. L’informale deve essere visto, percepito e capito. Il quartiere informale della Villa 31 viene considerato come una città all’interno della città: indipendente, con i suoi abitanti e le sue funzioni. Un insediamento informale deve essere rispettato e migliorato secondo le sue necessità. Questi sono i passaggi principali che ho sono stati adottati nel corso della tesi per lavorare all’interno di un contesto informale quale la Villa 31. Lo scopo di questo lavoro è, infatti, di sensibilizzare l’attenzione verso questo tema attuale, poiché, come spiegò Alejandro Aravena durante l’ultima Biennale di Venezia (2016) “Reporting from the front”, questi fenomeni vivono nelle nostre città e diventeranno un elemento sempre più presente con il quale ogni architetto dotato di uno sguardo sensibile deve operare.