MIXED INCOME HOUSING, A REVITALIZATION PROJECT IN MEDELLIN,COLOMBIA

Abstract

Settled in the Central branch of the Andes mountain chain, the city of Medellin

(3 million inhabitants) has occupied most of the land available for urbanization. This pattern has led to the appropriation, use and development of topographically unstable slopes that often represent geological risks and little by little destroys one of the city's most valuable attributes: the beauty of its geographic location.

In spite of the deterioration and the correspondent decline in the architectural landscape, downtown Medellin continues to be a vibrant market for both formal and informal commerce and services activities out of which numerous low-income families survive, not to mention its value as a historical urban setting where Medellin was founded and where the first commercial and governmental institutions shaped the city life.

All this calls for an urban policy that creatively re-evaluates the growing possibilities of Medellin. Based on the frame summarized above, and following the basic guidelines of an existing partial plan for a deteriorated but historically valuable downtown area (area of intervention for this purpose), formulated by the Government of Medellin, I propose:

First, to develop a schematic housing system that complies with the normative plan, critique it and decide whether it should be pursued or improved.

Second, to design a mixed-income housing system that:

Responds to the socio-economic characteristics of traditional inhabitants to the area while responding to the need for a functional mixture of housing, services and commercial activities.

Help solve the existing housing deficit

Connect the neighborhood to the urban fabric