One site, several scales
La Gran Reserva is a mixed-use development on more than 12 hectares that densifies the geographic center of Pereira in line with the compact, sustainable city vision of its land-use plan, ceding more than 35,000 m² of forest reserves to the city.
The site lies in the geographic centre of Pereira, some fifteen minutes from the historic core, on a valley that drops towards the Consota river. It is a rare void inside the city: dense guadua groves, ceibas, forest reserves following the watercourse, and above, on the high ground, the built fabric that reaches the edge and stops. The link northwards is Avenida de las Américas. The masterplan begins by reading that void not as available land but as ecological structure to be respected before any street is drawn.
The wager is about a model of city. Instead of pushing the urban footprint further into the periphery, La Gran Reserva densifies and consolidates the geographic centre, in line with the compact sustainable city set out in Pereira's land-use plan. The process diagrams explain it in two images: the dispersed city, with loose volumes taking up a great deal of ground, against the compact city, with the same uses pressed into height and mixed together — housing, retail, community facilities — releasing green ground in the process. The territory was divided into two general urban plans so it could be built in stages.
The river is the rule that orders the section. Along the riverbank a strip of ecological preservation is fixed and left untouched; next comes a band of public space whose vocation changes stretch by stretch — recreational where there are pitches and lawn, cultural where the slope allows an open-air grandstand, commercial where the edge meets the street — and then the pedestrian strip and the front garden that hand over to the housing. One section, three versions: that is how the new city reaches the water without invading it.
Within the master plan, housing projects for different income levels —Guadua (social housing), Palma, Inga, Río and Flora— live alongside the sales room that inaugurated the ensemble: a lookout over the landscape of the reserve.
How the ensemble reads
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From a diagram of two cities to a section that repeats
Master plan sketch
The project began as an argument, not as a drawing. Two axonometrics set against each other — dispersed volumes against compact volumes — served to show client and regulation alike that densifying the centre released more green ground than urbanising the periphery. From there came the second diagram, the one about interconnection: a vehicular line and a pedestrian and cycle line crossing the green void and stitching together two fragments of city that until then had turned their backs on each other. Only afterwards came the site itself, with its real topography, and with it the decision that orders everything else: fix the preservation strip along the river and design the rest as variations of a single cross section. The housing components — each with its own project — settled inside that structure.
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The dispersed city model: loose volumes, a great deal of ground taken up and no relationship between the pieces. The dispersed city by use. Colour separates housing, retail and community facilities, and shows that scattered they never reach one another. The compact city model: the same volumes concentrated in height, with the released ground as the argument. The compact city by use: the same colours stacked within one volume. It is the vertical mix that makes the whole walkable. The green void between two urban fragments: not leftover, but the piece the masterplan will put to work. Interconnection. A vehicular line and a pedestrian and cycle line cross the void and articulate both sides of the city. The site in axonometric: the Consota valley, the mass of guadua, the avenue along the high ground and the existing fabric on either side. Recreational section: from river to housing by way of the ecological preservation strip, the pitch and the pedestrian way. Cultural section. The same sequence, with fifteen metres of preservation and an open-air grandstand using the slope. Commercial section: the built edge looks onto the riverbank with terraces and a shaded plaza, without crossing the protected strip.
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The dispersed city model: loose volumes, a great deal of ground taken up and no relationship between the pieces.
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The compact city model: the same volumes concentrated in height, with the released ground as the argument.
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The dispersed city by use. Colour separates housing, retail and community facilities, and shows that scattered they never reach one another.
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The compact city by use: the same colours stacked within one volume. It is the vertical mix that makes the whole walkable.
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The green void between two urban fragments: not leftover, but the piece the masterplan will put to work.
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Interconnection. A vehicular line and a pedestrian and cycle line cross the void and articulate both sides of the city.
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The site in axonometric: the Consota valley, the mass of guadua, the avenue along the high ground and the existing fabric on either side.
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Recreational section: from river to housing by way of the ecological preservation strip, the pitch and the pedestrian way.
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Cultural section. The same sequence, with fifteen metres of preservation and an open-air grandstand using the slope.
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Commercial section: the built edge looks onto the riverbank with terraces and a shaded plaza, without crossing the protected strip.
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The projects within the development
La Gran Reserva (Sala de Ventas)
The sales pavilion stands on Avenida Sur, the main approach into La Gran Reserva, at the most visible point of the site. It is an open rise: from there Pereira unfolds westward, the hills close the horizon and, below, the green mass of the Consota river reserve. The project brief puts it plainly: the starting point is the views and the environmental potential of the place, and the idea is to bring them inside the route rather than leave them outside.
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Guadua
Guadua occupies a long, narrow block on the northern slope of the Consota river in Pereira, some fifteen minutes from the city centre. It is a humid, green edge: above, the forest reserve and the La Dulcera road; below, the bamboo grove that follows the river. The project belongs to La Gran Reserva Hábitat Verde and takes block 1 of its urban plan, along the planned Avenida Paralela Norte Río Consota. The coffee-region climate does the rest: mild, heavy with water, with the wind climbing up from the river in mid-afternoon.
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Palma
Palma is the residential tower of the La Gran Reserva master development in Pereira, Risaralda. In the mild climate of Colombia's coffee region, the building rests on a brick podium that absorbs the slope of the site and turns its roof into a shared terrace: from there, and from the apartment balconies, the view opens onto the valley, the bamboo groves and the mountains that ring the city.
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Ingá
Inga sits on a hillside in the geographic centre of Pereira, inside the La Gran Reserva masterplan. In front of it the ground falls away towards the forest reserves of the Consota river: a dense stand of guadua, tall ceibas, and behind them the city cut against the mountains. The project starts from the climate of the place rather than from a shape. Its siting brief sets out solar orientation and the use of prevailing winds as the opening criteria, together with green areas and open space understood as structure rather than as leftover.
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Río
Río is part of La Gran Reserva, a housing development in Pereira that settles on the steep slopes of the Coffee Region, among stands of guadua bamboo. The sloping terrain —worked with, not against— is the condition that orders the project.
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Flora
Flora rises in Pereira, Risaralda, within the La Gran Reserva development: a place the project briefs describe as «in the center of the city, surrounded by an extraordinary natural setting». The complex borders the Consota river and its environmental protection strip to the south, so the towers do not face other towers but a continuous edge of forest.
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