Citation
Martínez Navarro, Diego
(2015).
Strategic Architecture: Appropriation and mediation processes for social infrastructures: Torre David and Casa Familiar cases.
In: "Housing & Welfare Conference", 7-9 May 2015, Copenhague. ISBN 978-87-563-1698-9. pp. 18-27.
Abstract
The history of modern urban planning has revealed consequences of segregation, inequality,
destr
uction of the public realm, social exclusion and which have drawn new urban borders and
have fostered the proliferation of so
-called “fourth worlds”, especially in Latin America. These
informal settlements that coexist spatially with the first worlds of de
veloping countries apply
increasing pressure inside cities themselves and constantly redefine complex, contested
territories. The paper introduces two cases denominated “Collectors”, not to compare them, but
to explore transferable and valuable urban condi
tions due to their interest of being between a
formal / informal status. Firstly, the Teddy Cruz’s project Casa Familiar in San Ysidro, San
Diego, where a complex mediation process is proposed to generate diversity and social
sustainability in a marginaliz
ed neighborhood. Secondly, the Centro Financiero Cofinanzas in
Caracas, a 45
-story complex of 111,000 m
2
known as the Torre David; Before the forcible
eviction in July 2014, this unfinished symbol of financial monopolies was appropriated and
reconverted by
its dwellers into a complex, alternative piece of the city in just seven years. In
both cases, the concepts of infrastructure and architecture were intelligently blurred, leading to
the transformation of an urban, social millstone. Are there real values on them that could be
incorporated into the urban design process? The purpose of this paper is to uncover useful
clues, to redefine social infrastructure as an open
-ended system, to respond to the speed,
complexity and diversity of the contemporary city’s local urban processes