Bosque Calderón Tejada is a marginalized neighborhood located in the North-East of the Colombian Capital, specifically in the eastern hills. Its location is due to the settlement of the mining population from the early 20th century in the area. A man named Julio Calderón Tejada, destined his lands, for the exploitation of the earth, through mining. Doing so, he allowed his workers to settle in the area, which is now known as Bosque Calderón Tejada.

Over the years, Bogotá has seen its easter hills become the headquarters for multiple urban sites. This situation has had different consequences for the ecosystem, due to the presence of human activity in protected forest area. At the same time it’s been a variable that conditions the possibility of the Urban sites to develop and grow opportunities.

Considering that the unmeasured growth of the sites (which includes Bosque Calderón Tejada) could end up in an inevitable deterioration of the ecosystem as well as in a sentence for the neighborhood to remain:undeveloped, illegal and marginal, the project proposes a strategy of intervention, in which the benefits are multi-species.

The strategy aims to improve the human-living conditions on the eastern hills, as well as the current environmental state of the ecosystem. All through the experimental intervention of the case study Neighborhood: Bosque Calderón Tejada.

The project is composed by 4 architectural interventions, which are designed to be replicable, and in some case temporary. These interventions consist of: infrastructure (aqueduct), housing, a multi-species tower (which serves as a temporary shelter for birds, while the forest is restored), and a catwalk system that enables the connection between the project and future sites of intervention proposed along de transition zone line, stablished by local authorities.

The project aims to delimit the urban boundary, using architecture as a tool, rather than thinking of it as a burden in the never ending task of protecting the environment. In the end what it tries to do, is to value what happens in between the ecosystem and the architecture, and enhance the power that our discipline has, to give back to nature, and preserve human existence.

2024

Location: Bogotá, Colombia
Coordinates: 4.641449,-74.052789
Altitude: 2.741 meters above de sea levels

Author: Laura María Alvarez
Tutors: Daniela Atencio, Claudio Rossi, Daniel Bonilla.

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Laura Alvarez