Known from its social and urban issues, Caracas is a city of many layers of complexity.
Analyzing its history, an intensive urbanization happened due the oil boom on early 50s, increasing the housing demand, mainly to the work class. The utopic architecture of that time, inspired by Le Corbusier principles, implemented massive blocks of social housing intending to solve the housing crisis.
However, even being massive, the units were not enough to the population that kept growing. The way that people appropriated organically the city, spreading around the formal settlements and using with creativity the existent spaces, developed what the locals call barrios.
The barrios (slum) grown demonstrates the complexity of the environment and also the individuality of each house, connecting with the space and creating their own identity, even with the scarcity of resources.
The proposal of re-imagine Caracas focuses on solving the existent issues of housing crisis, approaching it by understanding the particularities of each person. The first step to achieve it was study the city through artistic movements, in this case a movie named ‘pelo malo’ (bad hair), which represents the dynamic inside the building proposed by the modernist in 50s. The main characters are divided between kids and adults, analyzing their different relations within the city. The mother (main adult character) represents the connections with the city, as she interacts with the macro scale of the city, up to the micro scale of her home environment.
Her relation with Caracas was divided in three parts and represent respectively: mind, heart and body. The mind is about rationality and how she should act strategically to take care of herself and also of her children. The heart represents the emotional issues and how they are affected by the environment; the same city that she fights with is the place that she feels at home. The body represents how she fights to achieve her objectives and how it is ever harden due her gender; the woman body is a complex symbol of strength and softness at the same time.
The second part is the re-imagined city. After the link mentioned before (kids – mother – city), the view from the kids appears, bringing their imagination and creativity to the frame. The spaces crated for them aim to demonstrate how the individuality of thinking and intentions could create unique spaces, less obvious and harsh.
The kids re-imagined part is just one example to break with the rules of general necessities, usually applied to social housing in underdeveloped countries. The value of slums/barrios/favelas most of times is not considered, even this being the fairest expression of lived spaces, as the ‘solutions’ proposed by architects are far from learning with the users. The aim with this model is make an incentive to improve the conditions of the barrios, understanding that it does not need to be solved, but improved according to their rules, giving value to the individuality of each one.
