Latin America at the Crossroads

Guest-editor Mariana Leguía

The announcement of Rio de Janeiro as the 2016 Olympic host city has placed Latin America on the world's stage. Latin America has not been the centre of international architectural attention and pilgrimage since the mid 20th century when economic growth triggered the development of Modernist urban design and architecture on an epic scale. Since then the centralised, utopian planned model has broken down. Mass migrations from the countryside and erection of informal settlements have left cities socially and spatially divided. Within this context and in the mist of globalization Latin America is set to go though major change once again.

In recent decades, resourceful governments and practices have developed innovative approaches to urban design and development, less to do with the utopian and totalitarian schemes and more to do with "urban acupuncture", working within rather than denying the framework of informality to stitch together disparate parts of the city.

This title of AD will explore the current urban issues faced by Latin American cities and the response of alternative local practitioners at different scales. Large-scale urban case studies, such as the revitalisation of Bogotá and Medellin, will be featured alongside architectural practices, research-based organisations and university studios working at a grass-roots level.

• Contributors include: Saskia Sassen, Hernando de Soto, Ricky Burdett and Bogotá ex-mayor Enrique Peñalosa.
• Featured architects: Teddy Cruz, UTT-Urban Think-Tank, Jorge Jauregui, Alejandro Echeverri, MMBB and Alejandro Aravena.

Editorial 5
Helen Castle

About the Guest-Editor 6
Mariana Leguía

Introduction 8

Latin America at the Crossroads
Mariana Leguía

Simultaneous Territories: Unveiling the Geographies of Latin American Cities 16
Patricio del Real

PREVI-Lima's Time: Positioning Proyecto Experimental de Vivienda in Peru's Modern Project 22
Sharif S Kahatt

The Experimental Housing Project (PREVI), Lima: The Making of a Neighbourhood 26
Torriti and Nicolás Tugas

Elemental: A Do Tank 32
Alejandro Aravena

Tlacolula Social Housing, Oaxaca, Mexico 38
Dellekamp Arquitectos

Governing Change: The Metropolitan Revolution in Latin America 42
Ricky Burdett and Adam Kaasa

The Olympic Games and the Production of the Public Realm: Mexico City 1968 and Rio de Janeiro 2016 52
Fernanda Canales

Articulating the Broken City and Society 58
Jorge Mario Jáuregui

Formalisation: An Interview with Hernando de Soto 64
Angus Laurie

Playgrounds: Radical Failure in the Amazon 68
Gary Leggett

Urban Responses to Climate Change in Latin America: Reasons, Challenges and Opportunities 76
Patricia Romero-Lankao

Filling the Voids with Popular Imaginaries 80
Patricia Romero-Lankao

Civic Building: Forte, Gimenes & Marcondes Ferraz Arquitetos (FGMF), São Paulo 86
FGMF

A City Talks: Learning from Bogotá's Revitalisation 90
Enrique Peñalosa

Bogotá and Medellín: Architecture and Politics 96
Lorenzo Castro and Alejandro Echeverri

From Product to Process: Building on Urban-Think Tank's Approach to the Informal City – Interview with Alfredo Brillembourg 104
Interview with Alfredo Brillembourg by Adriana Navarro-Sertich

Latin American Meander: In Search of a New Civic Imagination 110
Teddy Cruz

Supersudaca's Asia Stories (AKA at Home in the First, Second, Third, Fourth and Fifth Worlds) 118
Supersudaca

When Cities Become Strategic 124
Saskia Sassen

Organising Communities for Interdependent Growth 128
Enrique Martin-Moreno

Universities as Mediators: The Cases of Buenos Aires, Lima, Mexico and São Paulo 134
Mariana Leguía

Counterpoint 144

Looking Beyond Informality
Daniela Fabricius

Mariana Leguía is a Peruvian-British architect and urban designer. She studied architecture and urbanism at Ricardo Palma University in Peru and at SCI-ARC in California. She has an MSc from the Cities programme at the London School of Economics, where she was awarded a full scholarship. She has taught and lectured in universities in Peru and the UK. Currently, with the support of Australian funding, she is working on the reconstruction of the neighbourhood of Pisco devastated by the 2007 Peru earthquake. Her work has been published and exhibited in Latin American biennales and architectural magazines. She has worked as an urban designer on projects in Latin America, London, Russia and the Middle East. The announcement of Rio de Janeiro as the 2016 Olympic host city has placed Latin America on the world's stage. Now, for the first time since the mid-20th century when Modernist urban design was undertaken on an epic scale, Latin America is the centre of international attention and architectural pilgrimage. The mass migrations from the countryside and the erection of informal settlements in the late 20th century left cities socially and spatially divided. As a response, in recent decades resourceful governments and practices have developed innovative approaches to urban design and development that are less to do with utopian and totalitarian schemes and more to do with urban acupuncture, working within, rather than opposing, informality to stitch together disparate parts of the city. Once a blind spot in cities' representation, informality is now considered an asset to be understood and incorporated. Today, more than 50 per cent of the world´s population live in cities for the first time in human history, and an increasing amount in slums. As a result of globalisation, Latin America is now once again set to go through major change. The solutions presented in this issue represent the vanguard in mitigating strong social and spatial divisions in cities across the globe.

• Contributors include: Saskia Sassen, Hernando de Soto, Ricky Burdett and the former mayor of Bogotá, Enrique Peñalosa.
• Featured architects: Teddy Cruz, Urban-Think Tank, Jorge Jáuregui, Alejandro Echeverri, MMBB and Alejandro Aravena.
• Covers large-scale urban case studies, such as the revitalisation of Bogotá and Medellín.