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Axonometric depicting an expanding city of botanical identity and cultural appropriation

Dryfo Urbanism

Cartagena is experiencing rapid urbanization due to exponential touristic and industrial growth. This urbanization consists of a population that is 70% informal. Many of these citizens have infilled the Cienaga de la Virgen with garbage to create land in close proximity to the historic and touristic center, endangering critical ecosystems of mangroves and the dry forest.

Dryfo Urbanism proposes to plant the dry forest within the expansion zone of Cartagena as the botanical armature to curtail development pressure off the mangroves and provide the framework for future settlements. Leveraging the existing vegetation of the grazing land and the skills of displaced citizens, this proposal imagines a future Cartagena where the dry forest provides space for communal interaction and collective memory; a Cartagena where self-constructed citizens can enjoy their contextual ecosystem not as a distant landscape, but as component of their daily lives.

Status: School Project
Location: Cartagena, CO
My Role: Designer

Cartagena contrasts. Existing community of informal settlement and social housing projects are in complete isolation. Dryfo Urbanism leverages the existing vegetation of the grazing land to establish the urban framework and stitches the two communities together

Analysis of the ‘dispersed pearls’ in the city of Cartagena that could be made a necklace

Conceptual diagram of planting scheme supplementing the existing lines of vegetation to unite the ‘dispersed pearls’ of the city. Dryfo Urbanism places landscape as the protagonist of urbanization instead of another top-down modernist or informal patchwork design

Implementation strategy. To provide the necessary shade in a Caribbean context set to rapidly expand, existing vegetation is strengthened with a systematic planting of the dry forest and other trees to hold space for mobility corridors and pedestrian streets

Location map. Dryfo Urbanism lays the framework for both informal and formal infill providing shade and public space of character while protecting the 'arryos' and streams entering the Cienaga De La Virgen

Zoom-in site plan

Phasing Strategy. Dryfo Urbanism is a territorial responsive plan that evolves per population demands. Wood trees are used as a land banking strategy for future urban nodes of cultural institutions, community centers, schools and agricultural land

Detail plan and section of Bombacaceae corridor at the intersection of the city and arroyo

Instead of being a dump affecting the health of the cienaga, the aroryo becomes a place of cultural appropriation. With the cienaga and other dry forest families in the background, the arroyo becomes a place of unity and reflection

Detail plan and section of Plaza Flamboyan, a pocket plaza that highlights the colorful trees of the Fabaceae family and celebrates the tree as the protagonist instead of any conquistador or individual

Plaza Flamboyan integrated with pedestrian streets and appropriated by locals. From Colombian soccer games to a shift in use of tires from infill of the cienaga, Plaza Flamboyan carves the space for communal interaction and collective memory

Detail plan and section of larger plaza along the Bombacaceae corridor providing urban relief integrating the intricacies of the individual trees

Elevating of Macondo tree on both symbolic and poetic pedestal reversing its cultural association with solitude. Undulating lines of the base of the Ceiba are seemlessly integrated into the plaza design