Amphibian Orinoquía

A Water Reconciliation

Monterrey, Casanare, Colombia

Water is the region’s greatest and most valuable resource. The rivers of the Orinoquía make life possible, building an ever-changing system that supports plants, animals, and humans. Monterrey has lost touch with water flows, far and beyond across ecosystems that make up some of the most biodiverse areas on the planet. The Tua River for example is incredibly difficult to access from the heart of the city, leaving people to take informal and often unstable paths to access their river. Private properties form a contiguous barrier to the pebbled banks of the Tua, while private homes turn their backs to Leche Miel keeping the public from embracing the charming body that winds through the city. Monterrey’s disconnect with water speak in relation with conventual urban strategies found at nearby cities including Yopal, Aguazul, and Tauramena. Such methods of turning communities away from their landscapes are in need of new systems inspiring hydrological and urban connections. For Orinoquía, an amphibian landscape is necessary to conduct such transformations operating between both land and sea. Such alterations would allow for special metamorphic capacities, technological ambitions and intellectual sensitivity to immerge overtime, reconciling Monterrey’s people back with their surrounding waters. Design strategies include:

Water Systems

Macro Analysis

River to River

An Amphibian Landscape

What it means for the amphibian landscape of the Amphibian Orinoquía to become the protagonist of its urban future?

Our project suggests a role would require no overly specific or single actor, but instead rely on fluid coalitions. With clear urban and experiential objectives, our project seeks to empower a diverse range of residents and institutions to act both individually and together. Amphibian Orinoquia seeks to invoke a metamorphic capacity to inspire technological ambition and intellectual sensitivity by engaging at multiple scales sculpting proposed public spaces with the following three strategies:

a) Systems of Biocultural Programs creating public spaces in a non-linear transversal structure throughout the city able to address flood control, water treatment, education, and agriculture;

b) Urban Journeys of Native Canopies helping rediscover viewpoint corridors, urban rectilinear patterns, terraced public spaces and abundant native vegetations; and

c) Local Networks of Cosmic Intimacy suggested along their water bodies with a series of public spaces that engage physically and emotionally back to the city.

Municipal of Water

Planning Level Design

Lack of Tua River Access

A Threshold Destination

Tua River parallel to Leche Miel similarly has no access due to the blockage of residents and extreme topographical changes. Undeveloped areas near existing residents provide the opportunity to create entrances, public areas, and overlooks out towards the Piedmont’s mountainscapes. While Leche Miel integrates the river into the urban fabric--blurring the boundary of the city to the river–programs along the Tua river offer a more naturalistic and immersive experience. Urban Journeys of Native Canopies would inspire vast areas near Tua to help rediscover traditional urban practices using view corridors and terraced public places. The strategy capitalizes on natural assets like slope condition and native vegetation dimensions. Phased implementations for the canopy over time would also both minimize biological and monetary cost while maximizing cultural impacts.

No Leche Miel River Access

A Threshold Barrier

Leche Miel located behind existing residents, yearns to recover and embrace their neighboring river. Heights between the bottom of Leche Miel and crossing bridges for instance act as barriers closing any form of public access. Gabion walls built at these intersections provide the opportunity to construct a series of get-downs for enhanced public access. With the combination of gabion walls and minor grading operations, open walkways would begin to generate semipublic spaces between passing residents and private gardens. Such moments would produce a Regional Atmosphere of Biocultural Programs by establishing a transversal non-linear structure throughout the city. The physical and cultural programming would address flood control, water treatment, water education, and water agriculture while also creating public spaces that embrace existing topography, native vegetation, and existing institutions.