The Taller Tropical Moravia is the latest in a series of interventions which seek to promote environmental education in the Moravia neighborhood of Medellin, through the collective construction of a community space for meeting and learning.
The project was conceived by the Moravian community leaders and international students, within the framework of Urban Lab Medellín | Berlin, a cultural and academic exchange between the two cities that began in 2016 with the goal of developing local solutions for global challenges.
Starting with the premise that the integral and sustainable development of cities can only be built collectively, the platform linked inhabitants, civic movements, NGOs, artists, students and professionals from different disciplines, and actors from the private and public sectors; to discuss, research, design and build together. During summer schools in Medellin and Berlin, workshops, events, conferences and interventions were held in the public space, such as the renovation of the Tropical Oasis Stairs in Moravia.
Throughout this process, scenarios and strategies were developed to transform Moravia into a sustainable model neighborhood. At the Berlin Summer School in July 2017, 9 Moravian leaders raised the idea of converting El Morro areas into a laboratory for environmental and food education. This proposal called “Sowing Life” ( Sembrando Vida) was elaborated with students of several universities and the inhabitants of Moravia. Due to a certain slowness of reaction from the public administration, the project could not be executed this year. However, the process has raised awareness on the issues that the project sought to address, a wide network of allies and a wealth of knowledge. The community continued asking that the project be carried out and promoted the development of a Plan B: the Moravia Tropical Workshop and Garden in September 2018.
Design and construction were realized as a close collaboration by:
Natural Building Lab, TU Berlin (Clara Scheer, Daniel Heuermann, Prof. Eike Roswag-Klinge, Floyd Dörre, Jakob Bauer, Johanna Baier, Laura Gramm, Matthew Crabbe, Nina Pawlicki, Stella Sommer, Vanessa Cardenas, Vlad Buzica)
Urban Oasis (Maximilian Becker, Tobias Schrammek, Albert Kreisel)
FG Verbundstrukturen, Institut für Bauingenieurwesen, TU Berlin (Prof. Volker Schmid, Melf Sutter)
FG TEK – Tragwerksentwurf und – konstruktion, TU Berlin (Prof. Klaus Rückert, Özkan Yildiz)
FG Landschaftsbau-Objektbau, TU Berlin (Simon Colwill)
Habitat Unit – Chair of International Urbanism and Design, TU Berlin (Prof. Philipp Misselwitz, Moritz Ahlert)
Arquitectura del Oxímoron, Colectivo de arquitectura (John Cardona, Camilo Garzón, Joohn Vasquez)
