Bolivia Panpa Tukuyninpa

Strengthening social memory, local identities, cultural landscapes and multisensory perceptions.

By supporting people on identifying their local identity strengths, landscapes and ways to improve them, Huasipichanga contributes to the consolidation of sustainable and inclusive urban practices and policies. In March 2015, Huasipichanga joined the XII Latin American Social Workshop (TSL) as a tutor.  This event is annually organised by the Latin American Coordinator of Architecture Students with the aim of addressing issues related to urban planning, design and landscaping while training architects committed to social work. Though merely directed to architecture students, the contribution given by Huasipichanga in 2015 endowed the workshop, for the first time, with a multidisciplinary approach that allowed collaborative practices between participants and local actors. The latter being city hall representatives, the private sector, local entrepreneurs and students from primary and high school.          

THE PLACE

Villa Abecia is a town located in Valle del Cinti, South Bolivia. Known for its dry weather, its pools that naturally appear amid impressive red-coloured rock formations, and the production of a variety of fruits with which residents produce wine, marmalades and singani, Villa Abecia stands out from other places around.

The overall aim of the workshop was to transform public spaces in different three different towns of El Valle del Cinti, Bolivia. Huasipichanga was a tutor in one of the town ´s projects.  Our delegation worked to put local citizens at the centre of the process, creating a space for positive dialogues between residents and the local government. The core aim of the team was to create awareness about local identities and culture attached to shared areas in the community; fostering long-lasting changes through practices that can be replicated by the population in further interventions.

METHODOLOGY

SCREENING

Encountering the place before the intervention. Once all the participants arrived in Villa Abecia, we first visited the places intended to be intervened so the whole team of students and tutors could have physical contact with the setting. It gave us insights to start understanding social dynamics in the town.

Sharing ideas.  After the tour, an overview of the project was shared with residents to create a space for brainstorming and to comprehend, firstly, the cultural and social meaning given to public places in Villa Abecia, secondly, people’s desire to improve common areas and, thirdly, everyday life practices in the town. The above mentioned helped us to screen the context and provided us with a set of local-driven solutions to start the design for the renovation of public spaces.

Choosing the place. For being the witness of people’s daily life, residents selected one place for the intervention; The Cemetery.  Located at the entrance to the town and surrounded by two big squares (one in front and one behind) which are connected by a land-pedestrian walkway alongside one of its walls, the cemetery was the place local actors recognized as the one where children, youth, adults and elders interact. It is a place of great spirituality, seated on a natural slope that, because of its height, frames the best visuals and captures a unique landscape. Residents also acknowledge the importance of rehabilitating these place as a way to attract more tourism to Villa Abecia and hence, improve their economy.  

PICTURING

The design proposal given by the participants focused on the renovation of two points. The first one was the access to the cemetery by focusing the attention on restoring the big cross and the loop around it; a resting place with natural shadow provided by a big old tree was also designed for this area. The second one was the square located on the back part of the cemetery that would function as a resting zone and viewpoint.

Transit areas for students of the contiguous school and points that allow reading and recreation for everyone were special considerations made by participants at the moment of developing the collaborative design process.

The suggested materials to be used were mostly natural and native from the area; easy to obtain at a low cost, durable and non-corrosive. Thus, slab stones, multiform chromatic stones, cane sticks and sand resulted in an intentional texture that played with the spaces but kept the landscape and spirituality as the main protagonist of the place.

ZOOMING IN

Sharing knowledge. Whilst participants shared the designs with local actors; the latter also shared their experience and expectations regarding the intervention. For instance, the carpenter of the town offered his labour, workshop and expertise to help and guide the team through the process of remodelling the cross placed at the front part of the cemetery; people that had dump trucks rented their vehicles and offered their labour as drivers to bring the team members to the places where the stone and sand could be collected; school teachers brought children to the site of intervention to observe and share their thoughts as part of their class activities; various residents, while selling food, also shared their stories and work experiences in construction, tourism and agriculture activities.  

Building together. Since students attending classes in the contiguous school would be the daily users of the renovated spaces, we invited them to participate in the project actively. Through developing playing dynamics to foster good governance practices as well as a sense of belonging and appropriation within community members, children and youth got voluntarily involved in the reconstruction process, motivating their friends and families to increasingly take part in the project. Soon, the cleaning of the area as well as the collection and placement of construction materials in the squares became a joint task between the team and local actors.

As students from the school were actively collaborating even after class hours by their own will, an extracurricular activity was proposed to create awareness about the importance of getting involved in decision-making processes and interventions in their community. The principal outcome of this activity was the creation of a third square at the side part of the cemetery. Students, using their creativity, managed to design and build the third square in record time. It needs to emphasize that neither the workshop participants nor the initial conception of the space as useful.    

Towards the end of the project, it was needed to think about a name for rehabilitated spaces. Therefore, through a public workshop carried out in the town centre where children were the main participants, residents agreed on the Quechua term Panpa Tukuyninpa (which in English means The Square of All)  as the name for squares surrounding the cemetery.