Introduction

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Issue

A growing urban population, a global housing crisis, an increasing gap between rich and poor and an urgent need to adapt and mitigate climate change are some of the most important contemporary challenges in urban design. Retrofitting is an effective strategy to meet these issues. It deals with the development of existing neighbourhoods through densification, re-greening, diversification of residents, uses and activities. By adapting the already build the cities save resources and benefit from existing infrastructure. Retrofitting tends to improve the urban environment for the local population and creates potentials for the future development. In huge metropolises like Bogotá, Retrofitting is especially needed in deteriorated low-income neighbourhoods.

Location

Las Cruces is a neighbourhood in the historic city center of Bogotá, the capital of Colombia. The Latin American metropolis with 8.2 million has experienced rapid population growth in the last century, which urban design has not been able to keep up with. As a result, the city has a dispersed structure with strong socio-economic polarization and micro segregation. Informal settlements developed on the outskirts and marginalized inner-city neighbourhoods in the city center.

Las Cruces is part of the “Arrival City Bogotá” located within 10 minutes walking from the commercial and political city center it is separated by an invisible border of stigmatization due to poverty and insecurity. While the colonial architecture is still present the neighbourhood shows a high evidence of physical deterioration and there is a great number of tenements. Las Cruces has around 11.000 residents and a surface of 48 hectares. It is a predominantly residential neighbourhood with low story buildings, many of them “productive dwellings” with local commerce, crafts and micro industry. The living conditions of Las Cruces are very precarious, and the neighbourhood urgently needs Retrofitting strategies to be able to tackle actual and future challenges. Project

The urban design project focuses on the global emerging topics of affordable housing for the local, socioeconomically disadvantaged population and of productive neighbourhoods. In our case this means respecting the local identity and retaining as well as increasing local workplaces and job opportunities in Las Cruces. Within the neighbourhood several locations characterized through vacant and underused plots, buildings or blocks are identified as potential locations and up for Retrofitinterventions.