THE GREEN-BLUE CITY, AMAZON REFERENT

Universidad de las Américas

Project idea

Being a project that is in immediate contact between two rivers and the city, it can be seen from an essentially landscape and environmental angle for a new Amazon Referent and Green-Blue City; Where the image of the city integrates with the rivers, and achieves by combining and protecting the hydrological and ecological values of the urban and natural landscape, the flexible and adaptable measures to cope with future changes of the place; Establishing High- performance buildings with adaptable designs for a Community Empowerment, creating Smart and Sustainable Neighborhoods with a new Housing Typology for the Amazon and a network of facilities for the city. The project establishes three scales of intervention centered on 5 target issues: planet, place, progress, prosperity, and people.

Project description

The development of this project stresses the importance of adapting it to its environment, and respond to the site in order to restore contact between the city, water and nature. The diagnosis made, shows that Francisco de Orellana is isolated from its natural context, and being an Amazon city rich in biodiversity and surrounded by nature, there is a great deficit of green areas and public spaces without an environmental care and any type of infrastructure suitable for a sustainable development.

The project is conceived as a strategy to achieve the objectives of environmental focus pursued by the administration of the city Francisco de Orellana, in order to generate a green-blue city by implementing new policies and regulations, establishing a urban regeneration with: smart grid, landscapes, transit oriented development/clean mobility, green economics, inclusive eco- designs, climate responsive architecture, clean renewable energy, water/waste management, environmental products, etc.

Technical information

MACRO SCALE (Urban planning) / 250 Hectares of intervention.
The main intention of urban planning is to generate the least possible impact to its existing environment, by working with the given Urban-grid through the sensitive restoration of the city, empowering the strengths of water/vegetation and minimizing the weaknesses of pollution/degradation, Through the recovery and rehabilitation of the entire riparian waterfront by: Ordering the Southwest territory of Francisco de Orellana City, reforming the urban morphology and establishing a new spatial structure of the place; Organizing the transport, mobility & accessibility; Implementing new methods in the ecological structure for sustainable development; And, making it encompass the necessary quality parameters of the city in the public space and facilities to obtain high quality of living.

MESO SCALE (Urban Design) / 40 Hectares of intervention.
"FLOOD ECOLOGICAL PARK AND URBAN BLOCKS"
Once the Urban Planning is established, the meso scale of intervention is concentrated in the area that presents the zones of greater flood; which needs recovery, restoration and rehabilitation of: the river, the natural border, and the urban zone. Which Its function is to develop the new urban components that are implanted with their respective infrastructures and architectural elements; Taking into account its function, mobility, perception, the environmental and ecological theme; by improving the existing contextual conditions responding to its environment; and creating a blue and green network for the city in order to obtain an adequate and optimal management of the water and vegetation harmonizing it with the humid forest and the rivers.

MICRO SCALE (Architectural Design) / 1 Hectare of intervention.
The architectural project is the new model of settlement in the Amazon cities. Welcomes the settled population in risk areas within a natural environment to densify areas that currently have low density but have all the basic services and public transportation, so the city will compact by a new HOUSING TYPOLOGY FOR THE AMAZON. The project seeks to correct the main negative effects on the ecosystem caused by the settlements minimizing the projects ecological footprint. The people who will be relocated will be able to have sources of work in the project, nurseries and organic orchards that will permit the sale of native plants and products through the process of reusing organic waste. Finally the families will work in their homes, as they are flexible for more timely use of the family.

Co-authors

MAIN AUTHOR(S)
Arch. José Estrella
Arch. Arlet Zamora

FURTHER AUTHOR(S)
Arch. Roxette Suasnavas
Arch. Gustavo Carrasco
Arch. Andrea Orellana