Project description by jury

Surrounded by the southeastern hills of Bogotá that have suffered long-time illegal mining and informal housing construction, the Entre Nubes Ecological Park is a vast protected area providing habitat to a wide variety of regional fauna and flora. In this natural yet anthropized environment, the project suggests the realization of a light botanic pavilion that reshapes the silhouette of the excavated mountain. Steel cables fixed at the edges of the dig walls form 130m-long catenaries connected to vertical tensioners anchored to the ground to ensure the stability of the structure. A transparent ETFE plastic polymer cushion layer is positioned over the cables to act as a translucent roof protects the exotic and natural plant collections. Different volumes made of metal and glass elements accommodate vegetal species representative of the Colombian ecosystem. Pedagogical and recreational areas alternate in the sequence of paths and squares. In so doing, the greenhouse becomes a public educational space that recognizes the importance of the recovery, protection and preservation of nature.

The Next Generation 4th prize for Latin America went to Protective Canopy in Colombia – Landscape revitalization and botanical pavilion by Jhon Janer Salazar Ruiz, Juan Camilo Muñoz, and Lina Fernanda Valencia Lozano, students at the University of Valle, Cali, Colombia.

Southeastern Bogotá has been the scene of illegal mining for many years. The hills are also home to the Entre Nubes ecological park, a habitat for many endemic animals and plants. The project by Lina Fernanda Valencia Lozano, Juan Camilo Muñoz, and Jhon Janer Salazar Ruiz,students of architectureat the University of Valle in Calí,envisages the construction of a botanical pavilion that traces the natural contour of the hills and is perfectly embedded into the landscape. The lightweight structure uses steel cables anchored to opposing quarry walls. Vertical ties anchored to foundations provide stability to the tensile structure. The building is enveloped with a polymeric skin. The pavilion houses plant species crucial to the Colombian ecosystem, the greenhouse becomes a public educational facility. The determined yet gentle architectural gesture intended to mend a wound in the landscape greatly impressed the jury.

“It is both an aesthetic answer and an answer that is particularly well integrated into its natural and landscape context,” explains Marilyne Andersen. Co-author Juan Camilo Muñoz says the prize also opens up an opportunity on a larger scale: “With the LafargeHolcim Award we can expose architecture as a method of intervention and response to solve an environmental problem.”

Media Release (English) – Latin America: Responses to pressing challenges

Comunicado de Prensa (Spanish) – Latinoamérica: Respuestas a desafíos urgentes

Rehabilitation of the mining footprint on the mountain

The Entre Nubes district park is home to a wide variety of fauna and flora, a natural reserve where seven streams flow into the Tunjuelo River, one of the three main rivers that crosses and cleans the city of Bogotá. The mining footprint has left large environmental scars or (quarries) that threaten to devour the city's most important mountain ecosystem. The project, instead of a space for research, dissemination and protection of biodiversity, proposes to link human relations with its surroundings, recovering the silhouette of the mountain and the urban border between the city and the park that has destabilized the relationship between the urban landscape and natural landscape.

El sudeste de Bogotá ha sufrido durante muchos años las consecuencias de la minería ilegal y la construcción de viviendas informales. Entre las colinas de esta zona, se encuentra el Parque Ecológico Entre Nubes, que alberga una amplia variedad de fauna y flora autóctonas. El proyecto, creado por Lina Valencia Fernanda Lozano, Juan Camilo Muñoz, y Jhon Janer Salazar Ruiz, estudiantes de arquitectura de la Universidad del Valle en Cali, propone la construcción de un pabellón botánico que imita la silueta de las montañas y se integra perfectamente al paisaje. La construcción liviana está compuesta por cables de acero unidos a los paredones de la cantera. Las amarras verticales sujetas en la base le dan estabilidad a la estructura ténsil, que tiene una cubierta de polímero translúcido. El pabellón alberga especies vegetales esenciales para el ecosistema colombiano. A lo largo de las secuencias de senderos y plazas alternan áreas pedagógicas y recreativas y el invernadero es, a su vez, una instalación educativa pública. La gestualidad arquitectónica, decidida y amable a la vez, que se propone remediar una herida infligida por la minería en el paisaje, causó gran impresión en el jurado.

“Es a la vez una respuesta estética y particularmente bien integrada en el contexto natural y paisajístico”, explica Marilyne Andersen. Juan Muñoz Daza destaca que el prestigioso premio abre además una oportunidad en mayor escala: “A través de LafargeHolcim Awards podemos exponer un problema ambiental a nivel nacional e internacional, en el que la arquitectura constituye el método de intervención y la respuesta.”

Media Release (English) – Latin America: Responses to pressing challenges

Comunicado de Prensa (Spanish) – Latinoamérica: Respuestas a desafíos urgentes