Project Entry 2017 for Latin America
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City building strategy, Curridabat, Costa Rica
The image shows 1 of the 21 neighborhoods with intervention proposals built through participatory processes. Sweet City aims to consolidate natural conservation as an urban activity through the increase in the number and variety of pollinizers and through the reintegration of flora to stimulate pollinizing, and the creation of new bio diverse corridors. This will not only bring beauty and amenity for the people of Curridabat, but will also bring better performing conditions pollinizing activates.
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City building strategy, Curridabat, Costa Rica
The tools applied to attain our objectives range from new channels of communication and interacting with the community-workshops, charrettes, education campaigns, social capital points, co-building, co-planting and co-design – to the design and launching of new technology (apps and mapping exercises) that supply immediate and place-based information every day. Citizens receive benefits (goods and services) in exchange for their positive actions and good practices for the environment and society.
Last updated: March 21, 2017 Curridabat, Costa Rica
Habitat and infrastructure: Sustainable cities and communities
With increasing urban development and population growth, the city as a platform for development and the citizenry as the population that inhabits this platform have experienced a decline in the quality of their interactions with other living species. This is crucial for the livability and wellness of the habitat, as well as for the consolidation of a collective moral standing that has an impact on some of the global challenges that are pressing issues in Curridabat, such as climate change and the threat of endangered species, thermic comfort, inequity in the access to public space and natural amenities, and connectivity. The Central Valley of Costa Rica, where Curridabat is located, is highly fertile to biodiversity, enclosed by important biological corridors, its rivers and mountains.
Biodiversity: action to combat climate change
The majority of the 65,000 inhabitants of the city live in areas of paved or sealed surfaces hinder the appearance of flora and fauna, and hence, of pollinizers that bring great benefits for the biodiversity and environmental health of the city. This barren ground for natural interactions and pollinizing activities affects the visual quality of the urban landscape, dominated by asphalt and buildings. This rivalry between nature and city negatively affect the stress levels of the population, its productivity and its resilience capacity, as well as the overall ability for place making in the city. The project Sweet City includes investment in green infrastructure measures (SuDS, riverfront parks, groundwater recovery), as ecosystem-based disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation actions.
Productivity and coexistence: partnership for the goals and reduce inequalities
Sweet City is possible due to public, private and civil society partnerships. The municipality leads the project with technical support from the private sector and in alliance with civil society. The municipality, its innovation team and three consultancy firms, created a series of master plans for mainly highly vulnerable areas throughout the territory – in terms of income, risk to natural disaster and access to services – with a guiding principle to provide access to nature for economically marginalized communities. The participatory design of these master plans resulted in a proposal of collaborative workspaces, land use change (from industrial to mixed-use) and the steering of real estate investment through PPP between the municipality, the private land owners and the developers.