Little Dreams and The Living Wall

Little Dreams and The living Wall

by Sofia Chiappero

Little Dreams

Los Galpones

What are you going to do with this empty space?

It is called Villa Los Galpones by the neighbors; “the empty place” by the members of the city and the academy. They are a community.

A few years ago in college I worked in an “urban void” near my home. My colleagues and I went to visit the site and take pictures. The professor asked us: What are you going to plan for this huge empty space? When I took a look at the space I noticed that it wasn’t empty at all. It was a whole neighborhood. By that time I didn’t know why he was calling the space an “empty space” if it was a community of more than two hundred families.

Who owns the city?

An hour later, we were taking pictures and some kids started yelling at us. What are you doing here? You have the whole city for you!

In that year we finished our project. In that class we were almost 400 students thinking what we were going to do with that “empty space”. None of us came up with the reality that this space wasn’t empty and we were talking about real homes and real people.

A year later the government launched a national competition to do a master plan for that land. The best architectural firms presented their projects and one was the winner. The proposal for the place was a perfect park for the city. The plan was getting rid of the entire community and relocating them on the periphery.

Now remembering all this I realize that in all this time we fail them, the academy failed, the state failed because they weren’t representing all the citizens. Day by day the community of Los Galpones lives in fear of being evicted.

In this basis I present this project.

Los Galpones community The project is based on human interactions and how we can develop a way to recognize this community by making spaces where people can meet, exchange and interact.

Now the community of Los Galpones inhabits in an enclave. Their neighbors rarely recognize them and they also don’t recognize their neighbors. The indiference is reciprocal.

Little Dreams and The living Wall- Sofia Chiappero

Train Track Mini market Soup Kitchen Fundasol foundation and school support Informal football court

Brick Wall

Service spot Mini market

Soup Kitchen

Mini market

School support

Service spot Community football school

Soup Kitc

Soup Kitchen Rinconcito de luz Shed where people work as a blacksmith

Mini market

Area that provides services to Los Galpones

Informal playground San MartĂ­n Neigborhood

Alta Cordoba Neighborhood

Los Galpones Country: Argentina.

City: Cordoba.

Location: Cordoba downtown.

Families: 270 and counting.

The area it´s 8 blocks from one of the most expensive areas to live in the country.

It´s a community that was settled 20 years ago in a territory that was abandoned by the state. The place was used by the train station as maintenance sheds.

The place was chosen by the community due to its proximity to the center and the existing structures

The community speaking The community of Villa Los Galpones is another enclave in the city of Cordoba, the community is surrounded by a wall and by the train tracks.

The wall means for some, protection; for others, division and for the whole city, unknown territory.

What does it mean to live in an enclave?

How does Los Galpones community feel about it?

“The thing is, Saturday, December 8th at 4pm.

We gather, those from the neighborhoods who want to come to Los Galpones to inaugurate “the school”, share some mates cocidos, go out of the neighborhood to see us, to find us, to remember that we are, that we are, that we live, that we feel, we laugh and we cry, and in this case also, to continue demanding the cleanliness of the Villa”.

-Escuelita´s trainer

chen

“We tell you that we get together, and that for friends or those who want to be, for those of us who fight it day by day, for the bunch of honest, working people, means that we invite them to join us, because they’re actually part of it, or at least that’s how we understand it”.

-Colectivo Los Galpones

”I want my school friends to be allowed to come to my home, some of their families say that it is dangerous around here. My mom cooks very delicious and in the soup kitchen we also eat yummy, I want my friends to meet my little puppy”.

-A kid at Rinconcito de Luz soup kitchen Little Dreams and The living Wall- Sofia Chiappero

The living wall

1

Los Galpones entrance: The most important point of the wall.

Soup Kitchen Fundasol Foundation.

Place where kids go to do their school homework and eat breakfast and

actions

What it was the main barrier between the city and Los Galpones community, now its the tool to create quality public space for people.

2

The living wall

3

The project takes the wall as the creator line of public spaces. What is now a symbol of social fragmentation can become the new face of a neighborhood recognized by the city and its inhabitants.

The living Wall functions as a link of micro-interventions.

Soup Kitchen for women and children. Volunteers of Alta Cordoba neighborhood works here.

Family home where children go to play and read books, it´s a service spot because it always has electricity and water for the community.

4

Community football school “La Escuelita”. The trainers are from San Martin neighborhood and they receive supplies from San Martin´s neighbors.

Soup Kitchen “Rinconcito de Luz”.

The Links

5

The project does not plan to be completed, but is proposed in parts, called The Links.

These points were detected because of social interactions between the community and neighboring neighborhoods that already exist. It aims to support these activities and generate a new agenda of opportunities for people to get to know each other.

6

The Greens

Railway company shed. The only one that it´s left. The people of the community use this space as a smithy. They work with iron, produce and market there. It is an important source of income for the community.

It´s a well known place where a lot of people of the city goes to buy products.

Mini market and pharmacy.

little green spaces interventions

Delimiting green spaces is important because the community growth processes are often spontaneous. Therefore The Greens are proposed as spaces of air and vegetable plot. Each one is appropriate in different ways depending on the people who live around it.

Little Dreams and The living Wall- Sofia Chiappero

Mini market

Fair and local

Football court

Pedestrian path

Food p and ma

Multipurpose platform

The greens

School support

San MartĂ­n Neigborhood

l market

production arket

The link

The public space is organized by parts.

In each part the community and the city can create, share and collaborate.

1

3

6

4 7 5

2

Link 1

This part of the wall is the main gate to go inside Los Galpones.

The project starts here because it is the place that receives the most social interactions in a day.

The living wall Children playground

Soup Kitchen Fundasol foundation

The living wall

It is the main element that put together the series of interventions and activities. Micro interventions of tactical urbanism that unite the community with the city.

Soup Kitchen covered outside area

The square

The square

Football court

Pedestrian path

The square is the most convening place in the community. It starts with the best known place of Los Galpones and where various activities occur. A platform is generated that provides opportunities to market, cultivate and play. A covered expansion for the Soup kitchen is proposed to accommodate meetings and workshops including neighboring organizations.

Sport is important in the community, the dynamics generated by football among people are interesting. A space is proposed to receive an agenda of matches and sports activities linking the Los Galpones Football School and the Alta Cordoba Football School.

Physical activity is fundamental to human life, often in the Villas it is a matter of gender to have access to sports. The project creates an athletic path with exercise spots and playgrounds since walking is the activity that women do the most and usually joined by their children as mentioned by the Soup Kitchen Rinconcito de Luz. This line connects the square of Alta Cordoba and the square of Los Galpones.

Little Dreams and The living Wall- Sofia Chiappero

There’s a community beyond

“And the safest city is not that formed by compartments or ghettos, by tribes that are unknown and therefore feared or hated; The safest city is one that when they knock on the door you know that it is a friendly neighbor, that when you feel the loneliness or fear you expect lights to come on and windows open, and someone comes�.

-The Conquered city by Jordi Borja

the wall, you just had to go in.

Little Dreams and The living Wall- Sofia Chiappero

Little Dreams and The living Wall

by Sofia Chiappero