Identity Cultural Space Santiago del Estero

Universidad Nacional de Tucumán, Facultad de Arquitectura y Urbanismo, Tucumán

Project idea

The province of Santiago del Estero is among the oldest cities in Argentina, founded in 1553. It is a tourist destination par excellence for those who relish being in contact with local people and appreciate the charm of old traditions, comprising natural attractions and a deep-rooted local idiosyncrasy. Situated in Rio Dulce bank, this historical city is replete with varied traditions. Comprising its cultural wealth, such customs have been passed on from one generation to the next by word of mouth and the account transmitted from parents to children. Traditions have a special significance for local people. The legacy of those myths, customs, legends, folk dances, craftwork, regional food, singing, drums and textile manufacturing have touched deeply into the popular Santiagueño romanticism. Santiagueños dignified their customs for centuries, keeping and preserving intact those values inherited from centuries-old traditions, cared jealously by different Santiagueñas generations.

Currently, the capital city, labeled “Tierra de encuentros”, is experiencing a powerful process of development, directed towards the tourism, sports and industrial sectors, leaving behind traditions and generating new characteristics linked to modernization. La Banda city, “cradle of poets and singers”, is a municipality which, along with the capital city, constitutes the metropolitan part of the province. La Banda is going through a period of stagnation in spite of being situated on the opposite edge of the river that divides both municipalities. Thus consolidating two antagonistic realities just a few miles away from each other.
+ Consolidated Santiagueña riverbank: planned green spaces – sports area, recreational area and area in reserve – and the current construction of the Wold Cup Stadium which is foreseen as one of the major touristic attractions of the region. It is an important recreational zone where urban equipments are regularly used.
+ Unconsolidated Bandeña riverbank: it has large empty urban spaces, industrial areas – traditionally situated on the outskirts –, an unequipped suburb disassociated from the residential areas of the municipality, scarcity of basic public services. The area is not transited due to insecurity, delinquency, unemployment and lack of equipment.

Faced with these problems, this project proposes the creation of an Identity Cultural Space (Espacio Cultural Identitario) situated on the Río Dulce Bandeña riverbank, aimed at consolidating a centre of attention for national and international mass tourism (tourism on a macro level) as well as constituting a space of containment to those residential areas that are currently marginalized (local scale) by means of the connection between cultural customs of the Santiagueño dry forest (common to all families) with a contemporary architecture bound to the current development of the capital riverbank and the municipality of Termas de Río Hondo.
By means of reinterpreting the structural, spatial and environmental characteristics and its adaptation to the new activities, this project generates a flexible space of contention with noticeable characteristics on each sector, reflected on the combination of the raw material and weft structures; by using typical vegetation, water and fire as sensorial elements that cooperate so that the architecture speaks for itself while being looked around.
The formal idea of this project is based on the superposition of lines that shape the existing urban scene over the selected sector, generating a compositional weave with a modulation decreasing from 100 meters to 2.5 meters. Such modulation is materialised in the project as a structure of threads which expands and contracts itself according to the activities that it contains, making allusion to the typical atamisqueño loom.
The Santiagueño patio is a large empty field with natural floor in which, in the shade of a tree, a ‘rancho’ is raised - a typical rural dwelling with simple shapes. Further, the dry forest.
The architectural patio, a place for gatherings and meetings, organizing spaces.
Both concepts are used as a group in the formal consolidation of this project.

Project description

Position:
The project is situated in La Banda city, on 350x700 meters of land on the bank of the river. It is surrounded by the industrial park, abandoned or unused areas without proper maintenance, the technological node and, separated by a big wall, the suburb. These wide ranging activities make this place an area in which several routes converge.
The project takes advantages of such routes to foster the equitable development and the link between the land with the developed riverbank.
The developmental train is one of them. It is an urban train that goes across important points of the capital municipality and connects it to the technological node situated just few meters from the chosen land. In addition, the project also takes advantage of the routes across the Carretero bridge – symbolic construction in the province - and the new bridge, creating an important corridor on the coastal with which the terrain is adjacent to.

Objectives:

Urban Scale:
-Equilibrium in the development and link between both riverbanks.
-Consolidation of the La Banda coastal.
-Green corridor.
-Participative community space.
-Correlation between the tourism macro-scale with the local scale by means of the economic and cultural development.- Usage of the existing routes to strengthen the connection with the region.
-Increase of the development potential in the area.
-Usage of the existing urban thread as a linkage element and direction of the sectors towards the chosen terrain.
-Focal point – Social support area.


Sector:
-Promote the sense of belonging in the community by means of the participative development.
-Motivate the approach of the neighborhood to the development through education, production and selling.
-Attractive tourist destination, traversed on its own, combined with the mystique and the modern.
-A space of identification with the identity culture of the Santiagueño dry forest, revaluing customs.
-Reinterpretation of the Santiagueño dry forest, container to people and activities.
-Flexible space.

The Project is structured around the association of the Santiagueñas characteristics in four stations, from which the different spaces that make up the project are developed, with suitable activities for each of them.

1. Darkness: drought, the mystique, uncertainty, shadows, gloom, dances.
Situated at level – 1m: it has the entrances, sensorial walkthrough, outdoor amphitheatre, stage for shows and other cultural events, Fire Patio (courtyard).

2. Re/search: transition, movement.
It generates pathways that go along with the walking through the complex, from the different access points on the lower floor to the level +6.50 meters

3. Meeting: education, workshops, production.
Situated at level +6.50 meters, both cultural elements are taken as the ultimate goal of the research.

4. Freedom: congregational space, Santiagueño patio (courtyard), celebrations, dances, folklore, joy, sharing.Situated at level +1.50 meters, it consolidates itself as an open and flexible space with access from the neighbourhood and contains fairs for selling products, public services, administration, recreational areas, vegetation.

Technical information

The provincial constructions are characterized by their short height, places with low density.
The weather in Santiago del Estero has scant rainfalls throughout the year, extended warm season periods and high temperatures.
These aspects are taken into account in the Project, generating a container thread with specific areas covered where activities require so. The thread accompanies the different activities, thickening as required by the masses of people that will be held.
The building has a total built space of 100 meters long by 50 meters wide by 11.50 meters tall. The heart of the project made out of adobe – situated at the level -1 meters – is 17 meters long at its peak point, consolidating itself as the main attractive with its sensorial walkthough.
The estructural thread predominant in the Project is made out of structural steel tubing with a white satiny finish, linked by means of high pressure steel joints, cross-assembled knots of 4 / 5 / 6 exits for tubes of 100 mm reinforced with bolts. Regarding the fire patio (courtyard) on the darkness section, there lies the heart of the project materialized with adobe as the principal element of the walls that make up the volume, finished in lime-stabilised earth plaster to avoid cracks.
The earthquake-resistant structure is a reinforced concrete skeleton.It has a cover designed as a ‘mud cake’ (typical design of rural dwellings) with log structures.
The adobe structure is also used for the lateral walls of the Project.
The upper level workshop section and the patio on the freedom subject are consolidated as the modern wing of the complex, materialized through the use of galvanized steel profile structures with coated cementitious plates, linked to the main structured by structural tubings.