2015, was certainly a year to remember for Colectivo 720. After winning the Holcim Awards Gold for Latin America in 2014, architects Mario Camargo and Luis Tombé, together with Juan Calle and Horacio Valencia of EPM Group, won the Global Holcim Award Gold the year after.

Their Articulated Site: Water reservoirs as public park project in Medellín, Colombia, opened in December 2015, centers on creating high quality public spaces inserted into low-income, dense neighborhoods at a reservoir where two giant water tanks have been replaced by new infrastructure. The architecture takes inspiration from the site’s history, surrounding topography, and structure of existing tanks and pools, resulting in an intervention with minimal environmental impact. A humble design but the ideas about the future of the city are ambitious and imbued with humanity.

L'Architecture d'Aujourd'hui (‘A’A’) asked Mario Camargo, partner at Colectivo 720, more about the project genesis and the impact of the Holcim Awards on his work as an architect.

‘A’A’: Could you describe the project you submitted to the LafargeHolcim Awards for Sustainable Construction that won the Global Holcim Awards Gold in 2015 as well as the Gold for Latin America in 2014? What is the current status of this project?

Mario Camargo: UVA La Imaginación is part of the program UVA (Unidades De Vida Articulada) promoted by the Municipality of Medellin (2012-15) and implemented by Grupo EPM (Empresas Publicas De Medellin). The project aims at developing sociocultural public interventions around and above the water reservoirs from the municipal aqueduct.

From a multidisciplinary vantage point, this project has become a reference for the promotion of education, culture, technology, and community participation. By rebuilding infrastructure and valuing existing landscape, it recomposes elements of memory, while creating new urban imaginaries. In an interaction between nature and the urban landscape, the park seeks to improve the quality of life in the city.

UVA La Imaginación was one of the first drinking water reservoirs of the city. It included four tanks, two of which were already disused. The other two are part of the water supply system of the city. In this way, one of the biggest challenges and the main strategy of the project were to open the site to the community without affecting the system operation, fulfilling its public, social and cultural vocation. This was achieved through the re-use of infrastructure and inclusive architecture: open, creative, dynamic, relaxing, playful and green spaces that the sector needs to raise the knowledge exchange and community interaction.

UVA has become a symbol of a new urban development policy, focused in recognition and enjoyment of the city through architecture and public space. Today, they have developed permanent actions on prevention, promotions of culture, education, research and knowledge diffusion, through interaction between EPM Foundation and the community. The current offer of public space is complemented by programs including:

• “To create” workshops: painting, sculpture, photography, drawing, storytelling, recitals and cinema
• “To share” activities: book club, creative writing, and theater workshop
• “To communicate” courses: basic computer, Internet, word, typing texts and digital resources
• “To take care of the environment” workshops: clean water, human seeds, sciences games, animal mask, urban garden, eco-design, basic gardening

‘A’A’: What was the impact of the Holcim Awards prizes on your professional activity as an architect?

Mario Camargo: The Holcim Awards is without a doubt the most important competition worldwide in terms of sustainability. The impact of this recognition goes beyond dissemination and visibility. For us, as Colectivo 720, it is a commitment to think and build a city with quality, understanding the social, cultural and physical dynamics of each environment that we projected. Every day our professional activity is more committed to create more sustainable spaces and territories.

‘A’A’: What are you main current projects? Are you still in touch with the LafargeHolcim Foundation’s network and/or other Awards winners? If so; in what context?

Mario Camargo: Currently, our design studio is developing (design phase) three educational projects as part of District Schools program in the city of Bogota, and one institutional project, the new Cinemateca District of Bogota, currently under construction. Meanwhile, we are designing the lighting and landscape project of the Castillo de San Felipe de Barajas in the city of Cartagena, a monument that was designated by UNESCO as a World Heritage site in 1984.

This last year, we have developed different projects of different scales and almost all of them through public architecture competitions. At the same time, the office received a series of recognitions: winner at the 25th Colombian Biennial of Architecture in the ephemeral spaces category with the project Colonia Infancia, winner at the 2nd Latin American Biennial of Architecture with the winning project of the Holcim Awards, UVA Orfelinato (the original name of UVA La Imaginación which was renamed by a community competition to celebrate the opening of the facility), in the institutional project category. We also won in the not built project category with the Civic Center of Medellin master plan.

This year Colectivo 720 will represent Colombia at the Biennial of Latin American Architecture in Pamplona, Spain, in an open call that seeks to present the most recent and outstanding practices of young architects who works in the Latin American territory.

Another relevant aspect is that our office has been able to maintain ties with the Holcim Foundation. Last year, we supported promotion of the current cycle of Awards in El Salvador. In March, we will be in the cities of Cordoba and Buenos Aires (Argentina). In the same way, we have had other contacts to promote the winning project of the Holcim Awards in Colombia, and have received the friendliest treatment with each of Holcim’s representatives.