Project material
Mixed-use and mixed-income project in downtown Pereira
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.
More about the project›
La Gran Reserva is a mixed-use project on more than 12 hectares that seeks to densify and consolidate the geographic center of Pereira, in line with the compact, sustainable city vision of the land-use plan (POT). It will also cede to the city more than 25,000 m² of forest reserves for the contemplation of nature, and will begin the Consota River Linear Park (a project led by the municipal administration) by building one of its stretches.
La Gran Reserva seeks to strengthen sustainable dynamics that create prosperity and well-being for the city, in harmony with nature.
From a diagram of two cities to a section that repeats
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.
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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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- Category
- Urban Design
- Typology
- Urban master plan
- Partner
- INCOL Constructora
- Year
- 2018
- Area
- 12 ha
- Program
- 612 VIS + 292 lujo + 4.000 estrato medio
- Location
- Pereira, Risaralda
- City
- Pereira, Risaralda
- Status
- Portfolio
