2017 América Crítica. Vol. 1, n° 2, dicembre 2017

DESIGNING LATIN AMERICA. SPATIAL JUSTICE, SOCIAL HIERARCHY, AND DESIGN PRACTICES

ANTONIO DI CAMPLI Università di Camerino

DISEÑANDO AMÉRICA LATINA. JUSTICIA ESPACIAL, JERARQUÍA SO- CIAL Y PRÁCTICAS DE DISEÑO. RESUMEN: Este ensayo es un intento de codificación de un que la arquitectura asumió como práctica in- discurso entre algunas experimentaciones de crustada y figura discursiva para el despliegue diseño y planificación urbano latinoamericanas de nuevas estructuras de poder. En este sentido, de los 2000, cuyos lazos disciplinarios forjaron estas reflexiones son un intento de definir la alianzas con estructuras emergentes de gober- respuesta de la arquitectura a la persistente nanza urbana y cuyos medios y fines profesio- condición colonial en estados, ciudades y regio- nales se alinearon implícitamente con narrati- nes de América Latina y el surgimiento de nue- vas urbanas postcoloniales. Al excavar las lu- vas formas de diseño y de sus tecnologías de chas de la descolonización alrededor de algunas poder para contrarrestarlas en el contexto de la ciudades latinoamericanas y las crecientes asi- reafirmación del capitalismo neoliberal o de metrías entre la ciudad 'Letrada' e 'Iletrada' que discursos neo-bolivarianos. resultaron, es posible revelar el papel central

KEYWORDS: URBANISMO POSCOLONIAL, RESISTENCIA, BANDOLERISMO SOCIAL, CIUDAD LETRADA, PODER

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons © Antonio di Campli Designing Latin America. Spatial Justice, Social Hierarchy, and Design Practices. 2017 ⎸América Crítica. Vol. 1, n° 2, dicembre 2017: 139-166. DOI: 10.13125/américacrítica/3012 140 ANTONIO DI CAMPLI

Introduction This article assembles a narration with sets of projects, statements, narrations, Spatial Justice, Social Hierarchy, and events and figures, the whole of which Power Practices. Designing Latin America is constitutes less an ‘alternative’ history of an attempt to codify a discourse concern- than a history of Latin ing some Latin America’s urban and American discoursive and professional design experimentations of the present. In addition, this is not a treatise 2000s. These experimentations have dis- of ‘learning from’, as one may assume ciplinary ties that forged alliances with from the scope of material I draw upon. emergent structures of urban gover- Rather, it insists on the fact that in order nance, as well as professional means and to truly grasp what Latin American ar- ends implicitly aligned with postcolonial chitecture has become today, we need to urban narratives. By excavating the read it through a history of its discour- struggles of decolonization around some sive outlines, disciplinary territories, Latin American , and the growing epistemological contours and technical asymmetries between ‘Lettered’ and ‘Un- practices that constitute an entangled lettered’ cities that resulted, it is possible ‘political discourse’. Thus, far from pe- to reveal the central role that architecture ripheral or weird objects to be consumed took on as both practice embedded in, by architectural critic’s centripetal ap- and discursive cypher for the unfolding petite for the exotic, this text identifies of new power structures. In this sense, more of a methodological scope through these reflections are an attempt to define which it is possible to examine how ar- an architecture’s response to the persis- chitecture discovered a political instru- tent colonial condition of states, cities mentality in its entanglements with the and regions across Latin America. More- informal, the peripheral, the banditish, over, they try to define the rise of new 1 and the ‘legally exogenous’ . This discus- forms of design and its power technolo- gies, which are meant to counter these 1 The reference is to how the concept of social latter in the context of the reaffirmation banditry has haunted the Latin American imagi- of neoliberal capitalism or neo-Bolivarian nation. As a cultural trope, banditry has always discourses. been an uneasy compromise between desire and anxiety, and it is possible to isolate three main

2017 América Crítica. Vol. 1, n° 2, dicembre 2017 DESIGNING LATIN AMERICA. SPATIAL JUSTICE, SOCIAL HIERARCHY, AND DESIGN PRACTICES 141 sion is located precisely at the interface public spaces, passing through the rise of between fear and the intrinsic potential mobility infrastructures as devices for re- embodied in ‘unlettered’ urban spaces, duction of spatial fragmentation, and ar- that is territories that are indeed a fertile riving to the experimentations of ‘striat- ground for innovation. As social, eco- ed’ urban spaces. Venezuela, Ecuador, nomic and intellectual frontiers, they Mexico and California are the main loca- seem to be fragments, ’zones of excep- tions of this narration. tion’, well suited for entrepreneurial en- deavors and design experimentations. 1. A fragmented theory However, there is a caveat: if these This first set of reflections is con- threshold areas are ready for innovative cerned with the experimentation of inno- appropriation, they can just as well be vative socio-spatial devices in the context negatively conceived or appropriated. of the Latin American ; a place Therefore, it is not possible to be entirely marked by both class and ethnic frag- optimistic, and it is necessary to remem- mentation, and the presence of vast sys- ber that margins and borders are key tem of thresholds or interfaces articulat- sites where power may reassert its ing relationships between formality and strength (by censoring the Otherness), informality, that is lower class suburban and expands its reach (by filling juridical spaces, spaces of exception, fractures, so- voids). cial condensers and systems of enclaves To tell this story, the text traces an arc along environmental or mobility infra- starting from the invention of hybrid pro- structures. These situations can be seen totypes of multilayered public and semi- as a source of alternative values and vi- sions of everyday life for most southern representational strategies. The first one concerns the bandit as radical other, a figure through Americans. It is in the ‘thresholds’ be- which the elites depicted the threats posed to tween underdevelopment and over re- them by various sectors outside the lettered city. finement that it is possible to look for in- The second one involves the bandit as a trope novative discourses. The hy- used in elite internecine struggles, where rural pothesis is that it is possible to look at insurgency was a means to legitimize or refute an opposing sector or faction within the lettered city. these situations as fragmented spatial Finally, in certain cases, the bandit was used as an capital, as agents of transformation, and image of the non-state violence that the nation as a support and place of potentiality. state had to suppress as a historical force and si- These systems of thresholds, interfaces multaneously exalt as a memory in order to and fragments can be places of experi- achieve cultural coherence and actual sovereign- ty. mentation of urban mutation, seen as an

2017 América Crítica. Vol. 1, n° 2, dicembre 2017 142 ANTONIO DI CAMPLI alteration after which the urban space Ecuador, ‘Con Lo Que Hay’ (With What might have changed its nature. The re- is Available) is an academic architecture search question is: how is it possible to studio within the Faculty of Architecture make these spaces democratic resources? of the Pontificia Universidad Católica del New design narratives are at stake (di Ecuador, in Quito, for levels seven and Campli 2016). eight as a pre-professional opportunity In the past two decades, a new genera- where students ultimately apply their tion of architects has emerged in Latin academic knowledge along with social America, reinstating a sense of optimism work within a specific community. to the idea that urban designers can, one In the 1980s and 1990s, Medellín was more, make a significative difference in the murder capital of Latin America. the city-making of the so-called global Here, a sequence of mayors, in particular South. Sergio Fajardo, realized new kinds of ur- In Venezuela, the Urban Think-Tank ban open spaces, civic equipments and (U-TT), an office founded by Venezuelan infrastructures that help improving the Alfredo Brillembourg and Hubert Klem- city. However, it was the organization of perer, designed and realized in the bar- the relationships between dwellers, ac- rios of Caracas what they defined as ‘ver- tors and stakeholders to be more radical tical gyms’. These are structures con- than the new buildings and public spa- ceived as a progression of layers corre- ces per se. sponding to a superposition of uses and Along the US-Mexico border, a differ- functions, as well as a set of innovative ent kind of urban designer is at work. urban devices designed to give an ener- Teddy Cruz has theorized the role of the gizing effect in their communities. U-TT activist architect, by marking a form of also designed cable-car systems located design-practice based in the engagement in hillside slums, hence connecting the with the complicated business of policy. informal city to the city centre and im- Some specific elements characterize proving the mobility of Caracas slum these experiences: the design strategies dwellers. In Caracas, the architectural of- pointing out forms of urban transforma- fice Pico Estudio focuses on the defini- tion and densification focused on multi- tion of new urban environments and so- plication of uses, and the identification of cial infrastructures that allow establish- innovative social interaction devices. ing new methodologies of cooperation, This ‘tangle’ of different design strategies fabrics of horizontal organizations, and and experiences can be ordered in three forms of collective governance. In main families, or threads, described in

2017 América Crítica. Vol. 1, n° 2, dicembre 2017 DESIGNING LATIN AMERICA. SPATIAL JUSTICE, SOCIAL HIERARCHY, AND DESIGN PRACTICES 143 this sequence: ‘urban acupuncture’, ‘net- they could be imagined as 'zones of works’ and ‘club sandwiches’. agreement': areas for positive encounters and enjoyment that generate other ways 1.1 The First Thread of coexisting. The strategy of Espacios de Paz consists of focusing on specific places In 2014 the Venezuelan firm PICO Es- that can both generate dialogue and start tudio, in hand with the National Govern- the generation and transformation of the ment of Venezuela, organized Espacios de habitat. An example of these kind of spa- Paz (EDP) (Spaces for Peace), an ambi- ces is the one realised in Petare, one of tious exercise in urban acupuncture and the densest slums of Caracas. Here PICO participative design where professionals, Estudio transformed an informal build- students, local residents and public enti- ing occupying a footprint of approxi- ties worked together to benefit from their mately 120 m2 into a community space cities and people. This initiative activated hosting multipurpose areas: a recording urban processes of physical and social studio, a computer area, bathrooms, a transformation through architecture, us- kitchen and a rooftop basketball court. ing self-building techniques in public The design process tried to be flexible in spaces located in conflictive urban con- order to accommodate future changes texts. By transforming unused spaces and uses. such as empty plots and unregulated (See Image 01 – p. 157) landfill areas, the projects sought to cre- In engaging with the Venezuelan in- ate social dynamics that invite new ways formal city, the U-TT architectural design of living in communities, thus transform- office developed a methodology to maxi- ing categories that rule daily life: the use mize the amount of functions and social of time and space. The aim of this chal- activities that a single parcel of urban lenging project was to create social dy- soil could give (Brillembourg and Klem- namics which invite new ways of living perer 2011; Gehl 2013; Lerner 2015). In in communities, modifying categories 2001, this strategy was tested on the that rule daily life, transforming vacant Mama Margarita orphanage. U-TT de- plots into powerful spaces for their in- signed a football pitch on the roof, gain- habitants. These urban spaces were de- ing two productive stories out of a use- signed to both act as 'intermediary spa- less space. In the district of La Cruz in ces' within areas where social exclusion Caracas a building defined as a ‘vertical is a dominant issue, and to promote a gymnasium’ has been realized2. This Ver- of peace and coexistence among the residents of the barrio. Consequently, 2 See: http://u-tt.com/gimnasio-vertical-chacao/

2017 América Crítica. Vol. 1, n° 2, dicembre 2017 144 ANTONIO DI CAMPLI tical Gymnasium, constructed in 2003 at a sample of drying, fermentation and over 1,000 m2, consists of a fitness com- roasting processes. plex with basketball courts, a dance stu- These three spaces are sheltered by a dio, a weight room, a running track, a large natural roof that leaves a free ago- rock-climbing wall and an open-air soc- ra-type space for the community to live cer field. The former training ground together, to stay and play. This entire in- was located at street level, and due to the frastructure is built on the principles of densely built surroundings, it could not "what is available", that is, traditional lo- expand outwards. The solution was cal materials and local knowledge, ances- therefore to build upwards. tral technologies and knowledges. (see Images 2 – p. 157 and 3 – p. 158) (see Image 4 – p. 158) In the Kichwa community of Santa Rita, Ecuador, ‘Con Lo Que Hay’ work- shop from PUCE-FADA and the architec- 1.2 The Second Thread ture studio ‘ensusitioarq’, designed the The Caracas Metrocable is the most sig- Cocoa Interpretation Center, locally nificant urban legacy of the Hugo known as The Cocoa Cabin. This is as a Chávez era. It is a gondola lift system in- space intended for the analysis, dissemi- tegrated with the city's public transport nation and understanding of local cul- network providing quick transportation ture and traditions. Reasserting the prin- for those who live in the slums located in ciples of assessment and cultural under- Caracas' mountainous regions. The sys- standing, 'Con Lo Que Hay' defined the tem was built as a tool for social reform, main activities and the spaces the com- with stations set up to accommodate a munity wanted: spaces for hand crafts, variety of services such as daycares, li- for culinary activities and for the cocoa braries, police stations, markets and the- transformation processes. This shaped atres. The Metro Cable car system has a the project with three platforms: the ac- length of 2.1 km and consists of a funicu- cess and welcoming deck where the com- lar system with a capacity of 8 passen- munity has the chance to show and pro- gers each. The total system capacity is es- duce their craft; the deck, consisting of timated at about 1,200 people per hour in an open fire where the culinary culture is each direction. The Metro Cable Stations discovered and tourists can make their provide more than just transport: they own traditional local dishes, such as are hubs for social services and other chontacuro or carachamamaito; and finally community activities. Though the five the cacao processes deck, which contains stations share a basic set of components

2017 América Crítica. Vol. 1, n° 2, dicembre 2017 DESIGNING LATIN AMERICA. SPATIAL JUSTICE, SOCIAL HIERARCHY, AND DESIGN PRACTICES 145 and designs, such as platform levels, that the plots may be cut into slices, each wheelchair ramps, circulation patterns, one with a distinct , able to host material and structural elements, they different housing typologies or public differ in configuration and in the possi- uses. One of the plots, defined by Cruz bility of additional functions addressing ‘Living Rooms at the Border’, has been other community needs. designed into several rows: one for small (see Images 5 and 6 – p. 159) apartments, one for large family houses, one for live-works units for artists, and 1.3 The Third Thread one for flexible units providing tempo- In the first two threads, experimenta- rary accommodation for guests or rela- tions on new social interaction devices, tives. According to Cruz, pressing so as well as urban densification strategies, many uses and residential typologies are obtained by overlapping multiple into one land parcel made the spatial uses and functions on the same space, scheme innovative; nontheless, it was the working in section rather than in plan. set of social relation that may be estab- The third thread relates to the so-called lished between them to be even more in- 'Club Sandwich Urbanism’ as developed teresting. What is innovative about this by the Guatemalan architect Teddy Cruz. project is the different uses of the set of While in the acupuncture and network land. Cruz tried to define a new concept strategies the focus is on the section, here of by abandoning the idea the core of the action is on the plan, on that it is something that can be measured the horizontal articulation of the urban in number of inhabitants per acre; in fact, lot or parcel (Cruz 1999). it can be rather redefined in terms of so- What Cruz has been investigating in cial and economic exchanges per acre. the San Diego district of San Ysidro is a What is missing, according to Cruz, is a new model of participative micro-devel- focus on the design of the protocols of opment, which, working with a local the interfaces between communities and NGO called Casa Familiar, provides social spaces. services3. With Casa Familiar as the basis (see Images 7 and 8 - p. 160, and 9 - p. of the project, Cruz transformed two 161) semi-abandoned plots of land into a dense program of low-cost housing and social equipments. 2. A Theory of Fragments The strategy adopted by Cruz was This second set of reflections offers 3 See: http://estudioteddycruz.com some critiques on the design approaches

2017 América Crítica. Vol. 1, n° 2, dicembre 2017 146 ANTONIO DI CAMPLI and techniques dealing with the urban bawm wrote a small, yet powerful book transformation in informal contexts de- entitled Bandits. In this publication he scribed in the previous chapter. It talked about ‘social bandits’ as agents of demonstrates that these approaches are resistance in rural societies4 (Hobsbawm largely located within the framework of 1959; 1969). the so-called ‘postcolonial urban theory’, The social bandit, according to Hobs- that is a resistance discourse against cul- bawm, was a noble robber, embodying tural hegemony, aiming to define ‘outlaw the virtues of Robin Hood by robbing the languages’, progressive forms of bottom- rich and giving to the poor. Bandits ex- up planning, and new analytical and so- pressed social protest among the peas- cial representation tools. In this dis- ants and were thus regarded as heroes, course appears a ‘banditish’ figure of ar- contrary to the view of the authorities chitect - as Eric Hobsbawm would say -, who branded them as criminals. In cer- which, as the inventor of new social tain cases social bandits could lead the thresholds, spaces of resistance or of in- way, and in that sense, form a part of re- troverted urban devices, implicitly coun- bellion or revolt, which is why Hobs- teracts and reaffirms rooted colonial vi- bawm had originally cast them as primi- sions and conditions. A threshold is a tive rebels (Hobsbawm 1959; 1969). particular kind of territory that, as Fou- Bandits are described as figures of so- cault suggested, is with no doubt a geo- cial protest and rebellion who positively graphical notion, but first of all a juridic- figure in specific local communities and political one, that is the area controlled territories. They tend to operate at the by a certain kind of power (Foucault borders of social strata, at times teetering 1980). Design, in turn has to be political, precariously at both the edges of the constructed and negotiated. communities and classes of which they In this sense, what is at stake is the ne- are part of, as well as the power struc- cessity to go beyond the reaffirmation of tures with which they must deal. The ur- resistance design attitudes centered on ban hegemonic cultural system normally issues such as ‘creativity’ and ‘resilience’, considers these figures and their commu- in order to define a clearly alternative de- nities as belonging to rural territories, sign discourse. that are at the same time mysterious and dangerous. 2.1 Architects as Social Bandits 4 Eric Hobsbawm's concept of 'social banditry', In 1969, the distinguished British eco- was first voiced in Primitive Rebels (1959) and lat- nomic and social historian Eric Hobs- er expanded on in Bandits (1969).

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The construction of outlaw heroes im- concept of social banditry, which legiti- plies a number of elements that operate mated crime in the name of justice. The together to provide a recurring frame- cinematic resurrection in 1967 of Bonnie work that effectively sustains and rein- and Clyde, who robbed banks in the forces itself. The hero is a usually a 1930s, seemed to resonate with students charismatic individual who is spurred activists who were stoning and bombing into defiance by an often relatively minor banks in California. Social banditry was incident. By making use of an existing fashionable then, and it still is today to narrative framework, within which a some extent. crude but often effective moral code is Polarization has often characterized embedded, the celebrated outlaw, their the field of social bandit and outlaw hero sympathizers, and their oppressors ap- studies. Hobsbawm argued that the so- pear to act out a cultural script with their cial bandit is a reality that motivates cer- roles pre-determined by the tradition. tain forms of political resistance to op- This script almost inevitably leads to a pressive regimes within peasant soci- violent denouement. The dead hero, eties. On the other hand, many historians then, develops an afterlife that feeds and anthropologists argued, with de- back into the tradition keeping the leg- tailed evidence from case studies of vari- end alive and providing the basis for the ous peasant and other economies, that heroization of the next individual to raise both “noble” or otherwise bandits do not a sword, bow, or gun against an oppres- subvert the status quo, but rather support it sive power. through networks of interdependence Since Eric Hobsbawm’s initial formu- and collusion with ruling wealth and lation, there has been a substantial litera- power elites5. Historians plying the ar- ture about resistance processes in both 5 To some extent , the concept of social bandit is rural and urbanized areas. Bandit-lead- similar to that of organic intellectual as defined ers and their working-class communities by Antonio Gramsci. According to Gramsci there are traditionally viewed by the hegemon- are two kinds of intellectuals: organic intellectu- ic system as agents of resistance to ur- als and traditional intellectuals. The former are banism and urbanity, as elites define it structurally linked to particular social classes, and for this reason they are defined as 'organic'; (Turner 1975; Slatta 1987; Scott 1990; Se- they contribute to either the maintenance of the gal 1990; Blok 2001; Seal 2011). Especially supremacy of an already dominant class, or to in the 1960s, when students and other the emergence of a subaltern class, and their 'or- protests were in the air, people appreci- ganicity' depends on how much they participate ated and apparently identified with the in the process of building the hegemony of a class (Gramsci 1975).

2017 América Crítica. Vol. 1, n° 2, dicembre 2017 148 ANTONIO DI CAMPLI chives have found most of them to be expressed in these urban designs and pragmatic, opportunistic self-promoters planning experiences, is that Latin Amer- who robbed their fellow peasants along ican urbanism seems currently to be able with people with better means. More- th to innovate and reverse the 20 century over, through observation, bandits be- trend, notwithstanding that its tech- came wily and established linkages not niques, discourses and imaginaries were only with their village kin, but also with mostly borrowed from European or the powerful. At times, they had both North American approaches, that is strong political convictions and ambi- more generally, from the so-called West- tions and aimed more at entering society ern Urban Theory. Nonetheless, concepts than changing it (Block 1972). such as ‘urban acupuncture’, ‘networks’ According to Hobsbawm, these social or ‘club-sandwiches’ used to frame this bandits were the outputs of frictions be- ‘Radical’, ’Southern’ or ‘Insurgent’6 ur- tween modernization processes and per- banism (McFarlane 2008; Pieterse 2014; sistency of traditional forms of social and Schindler 2016), are characterized by spatial production that had modified tra- some limitations, including the absence ditional peasant life-styles and visions. of a clear attention to traditional class an- Hobsbawm found these bandits, often tagonism. For example, urban acupunc- protected in their activities by their local ture is traditionally presented as an ap- communities, both pre-political and, un- proach aiming to stimulate the city’s ner- der many aspects, ineffective and limited vous system with tiny interventions that motors of social change. Still, he celebrat- can have a catalytic effect on the ‘organ- ed them. ism’ as a whole. This approach seems to place a lot of faith in specific solutions to 2.2 The Limits of Resilience the problems of slums, particularly those It is possible to both build on and de- that improve transport links or that undo part from Eric Hobsbawm’s original for- stigma, introducing, for example, iconic mulations about banditry, by reconsider- in derelict areas. On the ing the figure of the social bandit as a other hand, too little faith is placed in metaphor to highlight some attitudes lower classes’ ability to challenge exist- characterizing the type of architect and ing social relations that produce these involved in the definition problems (Davis 2007). of the strategies and design experiences 6 I consider these three terms as interchangeable presented in this text. even if the locution ‘Southern Urbanism’ seems to Central to the encouraging attitudes be more directly related to African contexts.

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In strategies and dis- 1976; Mackrell, Turner et al. 1974; Turner, courses, the design attitudes expressed Turner 1988; Lobo 1982; Leeds 1994). in the three main ‘threads’ discussed in Creativity and resilience, or better ‘subal- this text can be considered as an expres- tern resilience’ (Bracke 2016; Chandler, sion of what can be described as a tacti- Coaffee 2017) are concepts easily con- cal approach to urban planning and de- verging and intermingling. They implic- sign, aimed at addressing issues such as itly support the persistent colonial vi- uncertainty, social inclusion, participa- sions and attitudes still permeating Latin tion and design of evolutionary urban American cities and territories, rather contexts. Explicitly, these design experi- than openly criticizing or challenging ences are optimistic and radical; howev- them, ultimately leaving Latin American er, on a deeper level, they can be seen as urban dwellers with almost as little faith pessimistic and conservative, consider- in the future. The situation may improve, ing that the actual characters of the Latin but only modestly and incrementally, as American city are in the end incon- it cannot be totally changed. Like its ide- testable, and claiming, at the same time, ological twin of ‘sustainable urbanism’ that architects’ main role is fundamental- before it, 'resilient cities’ is proving to be ly to negotiate cities indisputably gov- extraordinarily seductive. The creative erned by a marriage between persistent and resilient city can easily both with- colonial values and unchallengeable ne- stand and rapidly bounce back from oliberal interests and visions. shocks and stresses getting back to the Here, two very popular and disputed desired status quo of socio-spatial pro- concepts come to the fore simultaneous- duction, capital accumulation and elite ly: creativity and resilience, ideas which wealth capture. even John Turner recalled when talking The insistent reinforcement of the cult about Lima's barriadas7 (Turner 1965; of creativity and resilience has been criti- cized by many scholars, notably the Eng- 7 The PREVI project, realized in Lima in the late lish urban geographer Tom Slater (Slater 1960s, is an example of the experimentation of 2014). the strategy of ‘incrementalism’ pointing out a For Slater, resilience and creativity can third way between Modernism and Postmod- be considered as policies and think-tanks ernism. Latin America's incrementalism is bound to promote a process without definition (Open that infect and paralyze both the study Form), which is defined with small actions en- and the design of cities, which finally be- couraging social inclusion and citizen participa- come having important research topics tion. The invention of incrementalism can be con- sidered as the expression of a specific form of re- sistance of Modernism in Latin America.

2017 América Crítica. Vol. 1, n° 2, dicembre 2017 150 ANTONIO DI CAMPLI all over the world. According to Slater, In order to clarify these considera- the obsession on these two key concepts, tions, let’s recall the worldwide celebrat- under many aspects unjustifiably ed Medellín’s urban transformations. In equates the effects of socio-spatial injus- this case it is useful to shift our attention tices and the effects of the capital, pre- from the civilized, post-pacification senting both as something ‘natural’ and façade celebrated by media, to the ‘clean- therefore indisputable8. ing’ processes that preceded it. Under There is a long and successful history many respects, Medellín’s true collective of concepts brought from biological sci- project does not correspond to the exper- ences to social sciences, especially re- imentation of the tropical ‘social urban- garding the study of cities; ‘urban regen- ism’ symbolized by prestigious public eration’ being the most successful recent buildings, and realized throughout the example. In the case of resilience, pover- favelas. It rathercorresponds to the vio- ty and socio-spatial fragmentations lence that secured the city for capital in- change smoothly from being socio-politi- vestments before their construction. Cen- cal creations to naturally occurring phe- tral here are the old narco paramilitaries nomena. As an analytic framework, re- serving both as investors of capital in silience seems to carefully, and perhaps their own right, and more generally as even judiciously, ignore important ques- murderous guarantors of security for tions about the contradictions of moder- capital. The collective project included nity/coloniality or uneven urban devel- the murderous sanitization of some pe- opments. The dark side of urban re- ripheral districts in order to make them silience lies in the obvious, and to its pro- safe for urban , with the ponents, in the entirely logical sugges- narco-paramilitary leader Don Berna tion the word carries: lower class representing the “fusion of politics, dwellers should brace themselves for and organised crime…[which] scarcity of resources or environmental largely determines the shape of the built crisis, and in the end everything will im- environment” (Hylton 2006; 2007). prove. Moreover, the murderous side of the collective elite project was not restricted 8 Urban vulnerability, adaptability and climate to social whitewashing; it also involved change are topics frequently related to the con- cept of resilience; concept intended as the opera- the murders of activists in the slums, de- tive frame where projects are able to enhance the stroyed militant community organiza- understanding of and the response to natural, en- tions “for housing, healthcare, education vironmental, social, economic and technological and better employment, making many of shocks, as well as gradual changes.

2017 América Crítica. Vol. 1, n° 2, dicembre 2017 DESIGNING LATIN AMERICA. SPATIAL JUSTICE, SOCIAL HIERARCHY, AND DESIGN PRACTICES 151 the hillside neighbourhoods all but un- run tactics or to ‘lay ambushes’ focusing livable” (Hylton 2007). on small spatial interventions which of- This shows that there are actually two ten depend on the support of the local different forms of urban resilience which populations. Teddy Cruz’s tactics of recy- contradict each other. cling and encroachment across the Tijua- The first resilience, as detailed by Tom na-San Diego border; UT-T’s invention of Slater, is the neoliberal city facing capital vertical gymnasiums; and Metrocables accumulation. The second is the urban conceived as social condensers, are all an proletariat resilience, which can overflow explicit expression of guerrilla discourse. the limitations the neoliberals want to As social bandits, it appears to be an impose on it, moving from supporting ancient rural astuteness in the inventions capitalism to challenging it. In Medellin, of their hybrid infrastructures, spatial the response of capital was, quite con- layouts and physical devices, all of sciously, to destroy the resilience of slum which are conceived according to an ex- dwellers through murderous violence. plicit bricoleur attitude consisting of searching around for usable bits and 2.3 Design ‘at the Edge of Chaos’ (Beyond pieces that may be recycled and reassem- Subaltern Resilience) bled with other appropriate spare parts. The bricoleur invents, but mainly tries to As affirmed before, optimism and rad- find possible answers in what is already icality go side by side with pessimistic there, pondering what the objects can of- and conservative attitudes, both imply- fer. Finally, the bricoleur does not bother ing that the traditional colonial charac- so much about deep transformations of ters of the Latin American city are, in the the conditions of the ‘site of production’, end, hard to dispute, and claiming that as they seem not to be particularly at- architects' main role is fundamentally to tached to a defined plan, ideality or theo- go into negotiation with rooted values ry. and imaginaries. ’Acupunctures’, ‘Networks’ and In this sense, the present generation of ‘Club-Sandwiches’ correspond to ‘smart radical architects really seems to behave mechanisms’ that do not seem to be able as ‘social bandits’. They are explicitly to define themselves as a whole well- ‘fighting’ to improve the living condi- structured and explicitly critical new ur- tions of lower classes, by refusing con- ban theory, which is grounded on an an- ventional (rational and omni-comprehen- tagonistic relationship with not only in- sive) designs and planning approaches, herited urban knowledges, but also with and preferring to either adopt hit-and-

2017 América Crítica. Vol. 1, n° 2, dicembre 2017 152 ANTONIO DI CAMPLI existing urban formations and processes. tance 'enclaves' have been conceived and As a set of isolated actions they do not secured in different Latin American con- seem capable of calling dominant visions texts, provides us with an innovative and power relations into question: they range of spatial solutions able to open up are incapable of formulating a ‘plan’ be- our imagination about what might be cause of an obsession with the present. possible if the design of isolated frag- What these radical architects seem to get ments, devices and hybrids were re- at, with this line of reasoning, is a con- framed in a more coherent and precise ceptual short circuit where their hybrid discourse9 (Ungers 1982). What is at and appeasing devices find their legiti- stake, then, is the reinforcement of a mation only when existing tormented so- methodology of urban fragments, in- cio-spatial processes and conditions per- tended not as anomalies in a static body, sist. Though often implicitly, these smart but instead as a mode of generalization mechanisms, whether in form of archi- of a radical or insurgent planning theo- tectural objects, infrastructures or para- digms of settlements, function as devices 9 A reference in this sense might be the concept for maintaining peace. In this sense, it is of Grossform as proposed by German architect important to highlight that this is not a Oswald Mathias Ungers. In the 1960s, Ungers call for ‘better bandits’ as agents seeking tried to redefine the sense and meaning of archi- alternative mechanisms: ultimately they tectural intervention at an intermediate scale be- tween architecture and urbanism as a counter- serve the persistence of a dominant ap- measure to the processes taking paratus. place during those years in Europe. The formal For these reasons, it is possible to af- coherence of Grossform (meaning literally “large firm that there are surely severe limita- form” in German) could provide a framework tions in the three radical design experi- within which the unplannable processes of the contemporary city played out, while acting as ences presented in this text, for their sub- stable markers of identity in an expanding urban stantial indifference to history and the field of increasing formlessness. Many of the abstraction from large social struggles. ideas introduced in Grossformen would resurface As a set of isolated enclaves, they do not throughout Ungers’ career, and eventually find seem capable of questioning dominant their way into the better known Green Archipel- ago project. But where the morphologically pure power relations, and are incapable of for- islands in the Green Archipelago form a ‘dialectic mulating a ‘plan’ because of an obsession city’ as a federation of ideal fragments, the scale- with the present. Nonetheless, they are less concept of Grossform equally suggests the surely still valuable. The detailing of possibility of the island itself becoming a ‘dialec- practical and astute ways in which resis- tic object’, containing the exacerbated differences of the archipelago.

2017 América Crítica. Vol. 1, n° 2, dicembre 2017 DESIGNING LATIN AMERICA. SPATIAL JUSTICE, SOCIAL HIERARCHY, AND DESIGN PRACTICES 153 ry10. tures11 (Yeoh 2001; Roy 2015; 2011; 2005; In this project, discourses and themes Said 1978, Chibber 2013). of the so called ‘Postcolonial urban theo- The Postcolonial urban theory is basi- ry’ are directly recalled. This is a con- cally a set of discourses aiming to define struct traditionally inhabited by the post- progressive forms of bottom-up plan- modern concepts of the hybrid, ning. The questions traditionally ad- palimpsest, mestizo, creole, swarm; of the dressed concern the analysis and repre- ‘fragment’ intended as those elements of sentation of the city as a field of con- social life that cannot be easily assimilat- tention among different social groups; ed into dominant discourses or struc- the ethnic and spatial polarization and fragmentation; the role of religious movements and traditional elites; the 10 Talking about the relevance of the invention of claims on the state; the politics of antici- socio-spatial innovation sites (such as urban pation; the zones of exception; the acupunctures, cable cars, favelas or disaster recov- transnational migrant practices; the self- ery protocols) in a context characterized by the -reliance; and the user involvement in persistences of pre-hispanic modes concerning colonial grid structures and socio-spatial produc- service provision. It is possible to de- tion within neoliberal economies, it is useful to scribe these insurgent forms of postcolo- note that it is not a matter of proposing a new nial planning as ‘even in the face of pow- Latino or Mestizo Urbanism. Mestizo is an abstract er’ and in ‘the interstices’. concept of ‘mixedness’ that celebrates the obliter- ation of difference in a democratic, non-hierarchi- 11 Brenda Yeoh, in her paper “Postcolonial cal form. It holds up a generalized image in Cities” (2001), analyses the postcolonial debate which racial, regional and even class differences by locating the ‘postcolonial’ in the ‘urban’ and are submerged into a common identification with reflecting on three major aspects visible in the mixedness. In many Latin American countries, cities with colonial past: the struggle for identity, the mestizo cult became allied to indigenismo, that the encounters between the colonial and the post- is the glorification of the Indian, since the latter colonial, and the conflict of Heritage. Ananya was to be integrated and ‘mestizoised’. Either way, Roy, in her paper “Postcolonial Urbanism: Speed, these ideologies remain in the conceptual prison Hysteria, Mass Dreams” (2011), suggests a shift of racism as they still made reference to in- from postcolonial as a urban phenomenon to grained human differences. The point is, howev- postcolonial as a ‘critical, deconstructive method- er, that they explicitly denied the assumed racial ology’ so that the authoritative and hegemonic and cultural superiority of the European, while understanding of colonized cities might be revis- still projecting an image of mestizo homogeneity. ited, and voices of the subaltern groups can be This ideology can take on the appearance of pure brought to the debate. Ananya Roy illustrates her rhetoric. Frequently, it is a part of a nationalist claims by deconstructing the ‘worlding practices platform, propagated by political elites seeking to theory’ through the examples of three Asian create a unified basis of support. cities, namely Shenzhen, Dubai and Mumbai.

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Postcolonial practices and theories of ‘good governance’ with lots of account- planning, output of massive global-eco- ability mechanisms12. Both the traditional nomic processes taking place in various cultural backgrounds and contexts of the 12 As colonialism (and more recently neo-colo- so called Global South, have surely mul- nialism) was practiced by western countries in the Americas, Africa and Asia, the western Urban tiple patterns of manifestation. However, Theory was widely adopted in Southern colo- what marks them is their explicit ‘infor- nized countries. Produced in the context of high- mality’ and attention to the invention of ly urbanized cities such as London, Madrid, Paris ‘narratives’ where different visions and and Amsterdam, the traditional urban theories values clash. Since the late 20th century, were dominated by the urbanization experiences of Global North. Derived from this historical rea- scholars coming from non-Western coun- son, traditionally planning legislation in colo- tries have contributed to the Postcolonial nized countries was simply following the west- debate and have defined the term trans- ern traditional urban theory for a long time. forming its original meaning. It is possi- However, with the rapid expansion of urban ble to say that this radical or insurgent scale and population growth in the globe, the tra- ditional planning theory gradually became inap- planning is largely a ‘slum-based’ resis- propriate for dealing with current urban issues, tance discourse against all-embracing especially for Latin America. Postcolonial Urban and comprehensive top-down urban in- Theory from the Global South, however, focuses terventions. on informality, indigenous movements, local con- In this discourse, a strange relation- trol, traditional practices, insurgent and radical planning. Compared with the traditionally domi- ship between the traditional western ur- nant western viewpoints (colonial power), this ban theory and the so called postcolonial theory saw the problem from the perspective of urban theory appears (Edensor, Jayne the Global South (former colonial countries). 2012; Robinson 2006; Soja 2000). The tra- Postcolonial urban theory tended to overturn and ditional western urban theory is normal- challenge the traditional dominance of western theory in planning and urbanism (for instance by ly characterized by cartographic visions applying participatory budgeting to avoid cor- and top-down planning processes sym- ruption and waste during planning process,and bolized by the presence of specific con- by acknowledging various informal settlements ceptual devices, such as the public space in law). A series of debates argued that by accom- intended as the main democratic ele- panying the shift from the colonialism theory to the postcolonial urban theory in the 20th century, ment; the distinction between public and the research priorities of the urban theory had al- private spaces (i.e. intimacy and publici- ready moved to the cities of the global South, ty); the rational large-scale infrastructure such as Beijing, Cairo, Mumbai, Mexico City, Rio systems; the massive capital projects; and de Janeiro, Johannesburg, etc. These cities are of- the liberal democratic governance and ten described as mega-cities, places of abnormal urban developments with a mass of slums, terri-

2017 América Crítica. Vol. 1, n° 2, dicembre 2017 DESIGNING LATIN AMERICA. SPATIAL JUSTICE, SOCIAL HIERARCHY, AND DESIGN PRACTICES 155 western theory and the postcolonial ur- der to define a new paradigm or dis- ban theory place design practices and course that is not only an expression of a methodologies in the service of the position of resistance or of a subaltern re- “commons”, creating structures that silience13. Another route through the channel the conditions of contemporane- postcolonial theory is then possible by ity. At the same time, formality and in- considering that postcolonialism is a con- formality, as well as northern structured cept that can be used not only to analyze visions and southern informalities in and describe the ways a city is under- their normal interaction and conflicts, stood and represented, but also as a constitute a ‘complex adaptive system’ structured technique of planning and de- mutually reinforcing and legitimating signing. Reconsidered in this way, the each other’s discourses. postcolonial urban theory not only artic- It is necessary to overpass this opera- ulates forces and affects elidinggrips of tive and conceptual deadlock. In this colonization, but also may become an sense, the design experiences discussed ‘aesthetic of intelligibility’ and a material in this text, under many aspects, consti- articulation of innovative design visions. tute an attempt of innovation and a ‘chal- Another route is then possible by con- lenge’ to the traditional Postcolonial ur- sidering that postcolonial urban theory is ban theory. The three threads corre- a complex and layered discourse that can sponding to ‘Urban Acupunctures’, ‘Net- be primarily used to analyze and de- works’ and ‘Club-Sandwiches’ not only scribe the ways a city is understood and implicitly or explicitly draw on tradition- represented, though its range as a struc- al Postcolonial inquiries and discourses, tured technique of planning and design- but also they are able to cope with those ing is less clear. In this sense, a different narratives integrating a largely analytical urban theory which does not simply ar- discourse which has an explicit de- ticulate forces against the grips of colo- sign-oriented attitude characterized by nization, but is conceived as a tool of ma- the invention of innovative urban spa- tialities, devices of social interaction, and 13 The problem is not to highlight the difference exchange of spatial production models. between North and South. Under many aspects, the postcolonial theory is a way of inhabiting, What is possible, then, is to innovate rather than discarding, the epistemological prob- those processes of ascendance, emer- lem posed by western-centrism. The postcolonial gence and contestation by defying the theory is then at the same time a way of inter- grid of postcolonial world-systems in or- preting and narrating the postcolony and the West, or rather the stories the West most often ble urban transportation, diseases and violence. tells about itself.

2017 América Crítica. Vol. 1, n° 2, dicembre 2017 156 ANTONIO DI CAMPLI terial articulation of innovative design visions, could be developed. A different aesthetic of intelligibility linking coher- ent and precise socio-spatial representa- tions with structured planning visions is necessary. From social banditry to politics, this is the challenge. The uncultivated, rough and ‘slum-based’ resistance discourse must evolve toward more complex de- sign ecosystems and dynamics at the ‘edge of chaos’, where the status can be seen to be maximally unusual while still connected to that in the ordered regime, and thus is most likely to exhibit the combination of novelty and utility14.

14 This particular phrase is here used to denote a transition space between order and disorder, reg- ularity and randomness; a region of bounded in- stability that engenders a constant dynamic inter- play between order and disorder. This point of interface between the two is hypothesized to be the locus for maximum complexity, as well as the dynamic driving design innovation as in these regimes, where network states are more discon- nected from those in the ordered regime.

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Image 1 - Pico Estudios. Espacios de Paz Source: https://www.plataformaarquitectura.cl

Image 2

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Image 3 - UT-T. Vertical Gym.Construction Source: http://www.baunetz.de/meldungen/Meldungen Zumtobel_Group_Award_entschieden_4053827.html

Image 4 - Con lo que hay. Cocoa Interpretation Center Source: https://www.archdaily.com/771456/cacao-interpretation-center-taller-con-lo-que-hay-4-plu- s-ensusitio-arquitectura

2017 América Crítica. Vol. 1, n° 2, dicembre 2017 DESIGNING LATIN AMERICA. SPATIAL JUSTICE, SOCIAL HIERARCHY, AND DESIGN PRACTICES 159

Image 5 - UT-T. The Caracas Metrocable. Layout Source: http://u-tt.com/metro-cable/

Image 6 - UT-T. Metrocable. La Ceiba Station. Caracas Source: http://u-tt.com/metro-cable/

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Image 7 – Medellín. Metrocable (line K)

Image 8 - Teddy Cruz. San Ysidro, Casa Familiar. Living Rooms at the Border. Plan Source: http://estudioteddycruz.com

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Image 9 - Teddy Cruz.Casa Familiar. San Ysidro, Living Rooms at the Border. Maquette Source: http://estudioteddycruz.com

Image 10 - Teddy Cruz. Casa Familiar. Living Rooms at the Border. Maquette Source: http://estudioteddycruz.com

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ANTONIO DI CAMPLI Antonio di Campli is architect and scholar in and theory of urban- ism. He received a Ph.D. in Urban Planning from the University of Chieti-Pescara and a Master of Architecture from the IUAV University in Venice. His research projects won grants from Politecnico di Torino, Università di Camerino, Universi- dad Técnica Particular de Loja. He received prestigious fellowships from EPFL, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Politecnico di Torino, and Senescyt, Quito. In 2014 he obtained the National Scientific Qualification to function as an Associate Professor in Italian Universities. He has taught at many universities in Europe and Latin America. He has published extensively on the relationships be- tween urban planning, and power. He is regularly involved in designing, preparing, co-ordinating and delivering modules to a range of stu- dents on different UG and PGT courses, exploring a range of approaches to L&T. He currently teaches Theory of Urbanism at the University of Camerino, School of Architecture and Design, Ascoli Piceno, Italy.

Antonio di Campli

Università di Camerino

[email protected]

Received: 22/08/2017 Accepted: 12/12/2017

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons © Antonio di Campli Designing Latin America. Spatial Justice, Social Hierarchy, and Design Practices. 2017 ⎸América Crítica. Vol. 1, n° 2, dicembre 2017: 139-166. DOI: 10.13125/américacrítica/3012