Design and Research Portfolio . Dr. Claudia Lucía Rojas Bernal.

Claudia Lucía Rojas Bernal PhD in Architecture, Msc in Human Settlements, Architect.

Research + Design

Revision of the Mekong Delta Region Plan 2030-2050. RUA directors: Kelly Shannon & Bruno De Meulder International expert team: M. Waibel, C. Kesteloot, E. Heikkila and T. Collier. (december 2015 - june 2016) responsible for the development of descriptive and inter- pretative mapping and the development of cross-scalar design strategies, of which sustainable water management and ood adaptation is one of the main aims The present Mekong Delta Region Plan (approved in 2009) superimposed conventional and sectorial land-use planning concepts, which are radically in opposition with the natural condition of the territory and its intense settlement culture. A revised plan for the region (to 2030, with a vision to 2050) was codeveloped by an international consultancy (RUA: Research Urbanism Architecture) with SISP (Southern Institute for Strategic Planning, Ho Chi Minh City) to address the contemporary challenges of the delta and embed its future trans- formation in its geographic speci city. Development is, in other words, anchored on the en- vironmental qualities and dynamics of the region, which known for its economic dynamism.

New productive landscapes are proposed to strength the particular characteristics of the existing eco- logical regions. Aquaculture and agriculture are diversied in the landscape and massive aforestation balances the saline intrusion and creates more sustainable farming practices. Three major urban and rural morphologies, as a system of system wet and dry areas, are defined and derived from soil types, sedimentation, erosion and subsidence, as well with the predictions of inundation and saline intrusion.

Soils

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Flooding 2050

Saline intrusion 2050

Regional Plan >

2050 MDR transformation The Mekong Delta Regional Plan creates new, innovative and ecologically sound productive landscapes, which are equipped with a performative infrastructural systems of waterways and roads. One central spine, paralleled by two secondary links, organizes as well the connection with Ho Chi Min City and the rest of the country and simultaneously organizes the main movements in the region. The TransAsian highway passes along the Gulf of Thailand and ends in Bac Lieu where a new off-shore deep sea harbor nds a natural location of the subaqueous delta slope. This is also where a new regional airport can be implanted without sacri cing any productive land.

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New Upstream flooded morphologies All the new urban morphologies in the upstream flooded area are premised on the prediction that massive inundation will occur in the coming years and progressively increase over the decades. The hierarchy of topography, infrastructure and settlement is reconfigured in relation to future inundation. Over time, land- and road- based infrastructure would be heightened to a minimum security level (0.2m above the predicted maximum level of inundation). The most critical infrastructure (main roads and as well hospitals, government buildings, schools and other public service buildings would be raised even higher (0.5m above the predicted maximum level of inundation). Buildings are to be on stilts in order to avoid seasonal inundation and when towers are planned (to accentuate the skyline and make innovation centers, for example), then they should follow the principle of being at least 12 stories tall in order to have an economic logic to the expense of driving deep structural piles into the muddy land to reach stable soils.

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Coastal necklace The coast is the MDR’s primary ecological asset.

It is also its main identity and must be valued, protected and re-armored with local vegetation in order to mitigate climate change. The “coast” also must be understood to be a notion that extends far into the delta, particularly along the rivers, where the tides reach 110 kilometers or further inland. The islands of the rivers are considered to be biological and ecological preserves.

The East Sea, which strong tidal differences would be massively afforested with mangoves, while the calmer Gulf of Thailnd and its natural bays would be accentated with beach vegeation for recreational puruposes and melaluca trees on the peat landscape.

Adaptation of the coastal areas to climate change.

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Settling with waters.

A water urbanism case study on Bogotá PhD Research. Promoters: Kelly Shannon & Bruno De Meulder (october 2012 - june 2017)

In Bogota, as other Latin-American cities, demands for new housing are increasing daily, while the overall housing de cit remains an unresolved problem. Currently, the city faces the challenges to deal with the pressure to continue to urbanize ood prone areas with low-cost housing projects and simultaneously protect these areas in view of flooding, which promise to increase with the predictions of climate change. In order to contribute to context-responsive solutions to the water and housing issues, this research by design explores the structuring role of the water system. The research aims at developing cross-scalar tools for adaptation and mitigation in view of climate change and to provide solutions for the ever-increasing urbanization demands.

The format of the thesis is an atlas which allows a cross- scalar reading and interpretation of the territory and combines interpretative and projective mapping in plan and in section. The research focus on two cross-sections across the Sabana. The atlas is divided in three chapters. Chapter 1 presents the problem statement and the major challenges regarding climate change and urbanization. Chapter 2 presents an historical reading of the relationship between water and settlement development in four periods. Chapter 3 presents landscape based design strategies and new housing typologies that generates context-responsive solutions to simultaneously address water management and social housing issues.

Mapping is used as a preliminary stage for the development of the design and to gain a deeper understanding of a specic context. A first approach to the cross-scalar design strategies was develop in an international design workshop and through 3 master thesis. These exercises generate a base that was being further developed in the doctoral thesis. The two sections serve to test spatial possibilities considering the speci cities of each particular context and the analysis done in the previous chapters.

Cross-scalar sections of the Sabana de Bogotá> The systemic transect explores the relation between water flows and urban development at different scales, while the sequential sections frame the landscape of the plateau.

The sequential sections function as a synopsis in which knowledge of different fields is integrated and, when used as step stone, embody an act of constructing landscape that projects new interplays between water management and urbanization.

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Urban - rural interface in Funza and Mosquera. Strategic sites of intervention: Vereda Siete Trojes and Vereda El Hato.

Design proposal for one section. Re-articulation of the nature and city through the water structure. New housing typologies are choreographed within the preserved wetland. The landscape conditions allow to identify two strategic sites of intervention: Vereda Siete Trojes and Vereda El Hato. The design attempt to strength the landscape identity of this two sites and create connection to existing armatures.

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Flower farming

Agriculture field

Road + Storm water

Urban Flower platform farming

El Gualí Wetland Regional park

The design manipulates the layer of the irrigation system, integrating a new agricultural order that simultaneously functions as a structural framework for housing.

The irrigation system, built after 1920, is critical to guarantee food security for the region. The design explores the potential role of the preservation of the agriculture identity in “determining the economic, ecological and spatial order of the city.

Industry

Urban platform

Road + Storm water

Elevated agriculture field

The design aims to re-articulate the urban areas with the agriculture landscape and with the Gualí wetland. The large structure of the plots is preserved as a major framework on which topography is manipulated to create safe levels for housing. The design attempts to clearly define the interface between the wetland and the city as a dynamic gradient of wet and dry on which productive and environmental landscape are combined. The new housing typologies are choreographed to dissolve within the preserved, be it re-arranged wetland.

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Master Thesis - KU Leuven. Director: prof. dr, Kelly Shannon (spring 2012) The creation of lines bordering water and leading it from one place to another, preventing it to go yet another way, is a highly cultural and human action.

Riversides, dikes, levees, shoulders, etc. are all human constructions meant to tame and guide the water. Yet it are these lines that allow us to construct a relation with the water.

The Cartography of Hydrology studio focused on the finding, defining and reconstructing of these lines. Bogotá turned its back to the indigenous structural role of water and to the colonial system of “pilas”, invaded the floodplain of the Bogotá and Tunjuelito rivers and reduced them to a backside. By redefining the blue spine of the Tunjuelito, the main tributary of the Bogotá River, and link new expansions to this river, water cleaning, post industrial site reclamation and new public space can be integrated into one new project.

In order to meet these goals, a series of interpretative cartographies that trace the layered narratives of the landscape and their contested territories and that mapped the different realities had to be created. The final result are cartographies that present what if scenarios offering resilience in the face of contemporary challenges.

Water and mythology

Informal settelements in the Tunjuelo River watershed. Upstream morphologies (left). Downstream morphologies (right).

Provision of fresh water as structure of urbanity 10

academic work

Carthographies of Hydrology - Bogota - Colombia Social housing/Social Infrastructure + Floodplain (re)Programming

Informal settlements

Ecological disturbance

Design proposal housing and water management

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Antwerp - Re-visiting the modernist city Meditiating landscape Design Studio - KU Leuven (fall 2011) Guided by Laura Vescina. Team work: B. Ilie, H. Das At its origins, the city of Antwerp and the port were one and the same urban milieu. The past decades however, the harbor outgrew the city and its tight urban scale. Driven by ongoing processes of economic growth and industrialization, the port started its quest up North, looking for even more space which was found and consumed in the former polder landscapes.

The port’s master plan proposes to develop buffers between the harbor and its surroundings. These buffers focuses on environmental sensitive and valuable areas. At the location of Luchtbal however, there is simply no space for such a buffer. Therefore the proposal redevelops the industrial abandond area between the Noorderlaan and the Vosseschijnstraat as a park. This park inscribes itself in a sequence of urban parks on a metropolitan scale.

The project proposes to develop a park with sports and cultural facilities.

Having potential and meaning for both urban environment (Luchtbal) and port, this park becomes a model for the future “spaces of Mediation”.

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The Luchtbal Housing is densified in order to capitalize on its new identity as well as its access to infrastructure. The densifcation is implemented through low-rise high den- sity buildings that allow the modernist blocks to stay prominent as a reminder of the past. The water front is de- veloped as a public space at the southern end of the park and as a residential enclave at the southern end of the Luchtbal housing.

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(agosto 2010 - febrero 2011) director: Camilo Pinilla Team: A. Hernandez and A. Garces.

Responsible for design, design development and technical detailing.

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professional work

Public school Tumaco

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professional work

Public school Arborizadora Alta universidad distrital francisco josé de caldas - secretaria de educacióndirector: roberto bernal (may 2009 - may 2010) Team with L. Castellanos and S. Ballén.

Responsible for design, design development and technical detailing.

The Secretary of Education in Bogota has created an ambitious plan in order to renovate the physical infrastructure of public schools in Bogotá; Arborizadora Alta School is one of these projects located in an area of informal origin with risk of landslide and steep topograpy. The population of the school is1560 students.

The project takes advantage of the difficult topographic configuration and proposes a continuous public space at different levels, each of them with a specific spatial configuration. The public space serves as platform for tree blocks that contains the activities of the school. In addition, the difference of levels between the blocks in the project shapes a series of terraces and green roofs which emphasizes the relation with the environment. a

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plan level -3

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axonometric view of public spaces at diferents levels

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plan level -2

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plan level 1

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plan level 2

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professional work

universidad nacional de colombia - sede bogotá. director: Prof. juan manuel robayo (august - november 2007) Responsible for schematic site design and master planning, 3D modeling and renderings

professional work

Prelimany plan - Campus Recreation Center

The campus recreation center tries to gather all of the sportive and recreational activities, which nowadays are dispersed in the campus, in a big complex with high technical specifications.

The recreation center will be developed in an area of 250.000m2, and consolidates the original sportive area, planned by the architects Leopoldo Rother and Eric Lange in the 50s.

The project comprises the construction of a new building, which contains 3 semi Olympic swimming pools and a gymnasium, and the refurbishing of the Concha acústica building and the Alfonso López Pumarejo Stadium, besides there will be built almost 35.000m2 of new sportive spaces and 20.000m2 of pedestrian ways and squares.

axonometric view

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professional work

Swimming Pool & Sports Centre universidad nacional de colombia - sede bogotá. director: juan manuel robayo (december 2008 - may 2009) Team: N. Gualteros, S. Niño and J. Bolaños.

Responsible for the design development and technical detailing.

section a-a’ c

section c-c’ d

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second floor

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plan second floor

contained box sports facilities

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services

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first floor a - swimming pool b -aerobics room c - food court d - restrooms e - restrooms f - kitchen g - gymnasium

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plan first floor

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union temportal plutarco eduardo rojas - javier andrés cardenas. Responsible for design of las palmas avenue (september - october 2008) Responsible, with a design team, for schematic site design and architectonic design

The contest was organized to develop the design of five public spaces surrounding by historical buildings in the center of Barranquilla.

The proposal focuses in the construction of an integral project that stress the unity of the intervention. This aim was achieved through a graphical patron of strong aesthetic on which different systems were juxtaposed (vegetation, illumination and street furniture) In contrast to the unifying quality of the floor pattern, the program of each space and public space is specific and was selected according to each specific context and the activities in the surrounding neighborhoods.

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Hospital square San Roque square San Nicolas square San Jose square Las Palmas avenue

location of the areas for intervention in red and heritage buildings in orange 20

5. las palmas avenue

professional work

Urban design competition: public space in the historical center of Barranquilla

4. San Jose square

2. San Roque square

5. las palmas avenue

facade- 5. las palmas avenue

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universidad nacional de colombia - sede bogotá. director: Prof. juan manuel robayo (december 2007 - may 2008) Team: N. Gualteros and S. Niño Responsible for the design development and technical detailing.

The campus master plan points to consolidate the pedestrian mobility network and an open space system that provide well-being for the university community. The food court, with a capacity for over 750 persons and area of 2500m2, is one of the most important interventions for the consolidation of that system. The building consists in a big roof, which expresses a plastic intention, supported by big metallic structures that shape a huge free space without interruptions; this is the space of the common area for self-serve dining. The space is occupied in small proportion by a volume which contains different types of food stalls and services. The architectural language and the materials use, try to turn the building in a landmark inside the campus and at the same time look for the integration with the open space system and near buildings through its permeable character.

localización

metalic structure

big roof 22

corte

professional work

Food court

access from the new square

interior view

axonometric view 23

universidad nacional de colombia - sede bogotá. director: Prof. juan manuel robayo (august 2006 - june 2007) Responsible for the design development and technical detailing.

The sculpture park and the car parking lot are frame into the campus master plan, these two projects are oriented to consolidate the mobility system and to strengthen the public space in order to provide a high qualified environment for the university community. The car parking lot is developed in a linear street of 358m and 9000m2, the parking completes the existent road network facilitating the connection with the campus access and the different departments. The road was built using recycled materials of a previous demolished area and the parking spaces using impermeable pieces of concrete in order to promote rainwater infiltration. The sculpture park is located in a degraded area of the campus. The project consists in the construction of several pedestrian ways but minimum area, preserving the grass. The park developed in an area of 35.000m2 contains different sculptures from the most important abstract artists in Colombia. corte a-a

corte b-b planta general

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professional work

Sculpture park and car parking lot

car parking lot

sculpture park

sculpture park

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Registration office - Universidad Nacional universidad nacional de colombia - sede bogotá. director: Prof. juan manuel robayo (october 2007 - july 2008) Responsible for the design, design development and technical detailing and construction supervision.

The renovation of the facilities of the registration office is a pressing necessity for the university, because in the actual office is impossible to give and adequate response for the demand of attention of the students or optimize the process in the information management. The project consist in the extension of the plan floor, the increase of the working stations and public attention and the centralization of the different functions that before were developed in each faculty, in order to make agilely and more efficient the department operation.

plan

restrooms waiting room public atention

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administrative offices temporal support access

access

access

administrative offices

administrative offices

professional work

Competition: Plan parcial Urbaniazción Santa Helena dsb arquitectos - director: Diego Suarez Betancourt (june- july 2006) Team: M.Guevara Responsible, with design team, for schematic and architectonic design.

The contest of architecture: plan parcial urbanización santa helena, proposes to develop an area of 20.000m2 with 1500 apartments, guarantying the network of open spaces for the citizens at different scales, and providing commercial equipment. The project configures the urban form through the definition of the blocks edges and the alternation on the high building, creating an harmonic composition.

north facade

apartment types

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universidad nacional de colombia - instituto distrital de recreación y deporte director: Prof. juan manuel robayo (september 2005 - april 2006) Team: L. Ospina, S. Moreno, J. Cardenas, D. Cala.

Responsible, with an interdisciplinary team, for master planning, developing of diagnostics, prospective parameters and ordering principles through urban and architectonic projects.

general network

sportive complex

associated with equipment associated with natural enviroment sportive complex civic park botanical garden

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main network

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professional work

Bogota Sports and recreation facilities Master Plan (2005-2019)

spatial components

playground

sportive equipment

district

biotype

multifunctional

playground

square

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sportive equipment local

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metropolitan biotype

park system

multifunctional

square

types of sportive facilities

sport equipment system

types of sportive facilities

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Research: construcción del territorio colombiano. instituto de investigaciones estéticas - universidad nacional de colombia- director: Prof. carlos niño murcia (january 2002 - october 2003) (oct - nov 2004) (april - may 2005) Direct supervision: S. Text reading and development of cards about indigenous topics, developing of graphics and maps in AutoCAD and Corel Draw, bibliographic research and information catalogue

The first part of the research “construction of Colombian territory” begins in a chapter that has often been reduced by other investigations about urbanism or Colombian architecture: indigenous architecture.

A cross-reading of three main objects of study: the territory, the myth and the architecture allow to grasp the complexity of this issue. These elements are not independent but interlinked allowing understand the entanglement between man, culture, society, family, the environment, materials, housing, geography, food, etc.

The territory This part of the research focused on the study of indigenous settlements at the arrival of the colonizers. The chronicles of the conquerors and subsequent reports of modern archeology were the main sources of the research.

Maps of all Colombian regions were draw analyzing these inputs. The maps show the different indigenous groups that inhabited the territory before colonization and its relations with the geographic conditions of each place. In the same way this spatial location is aligned mythological and cosmological relations with the world.

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research

Myth This part of the research is not only a compilation of the myths of different indigenous groups but also its translation into graphics. The graphics reflect the complex relations established with the territory in terms of social organization, use of resources, natural cycles among others.

Architecture This part of the research focusses on understanding the symbolism of architecture and its relation to the myths. C--olombian indigenous architecture strengthed the mythological beliefs and was synchronized with the environment.

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