Lima, Peru/Harvard GSD/Option Studio/Jean Pierre Crousse /In Collaboration with Long Zuo
This project aims to revitalize the Maranga archeological complex area by re-imagining its current physical and social borders. Through the creation of an educational and cultural district, it seeks to add value and meaning to the historical concepts associated with the pre-Columbian heritage sites of Lima, through the establishment of a new urban dialogue between the city and the huacas where they can be acknowledged and reinterpreted as a holistic urban image.
Traditional Maranga complex contained impressive huge monuments, numerous pyramids, palaces, temples and administrative centers. Their vast scale and dominant layout used be very present in the urban imaginary of the citizens, due to the visual impact and connections among them in the city
Urban land around Maranga complex was left undeveloped before 1960s. However as a result of the cities’ rapid expansion in recent 30 years, as the last piece of land adjacent to downtown Lima, this urban void was quickly filled in by large institutes and incremental housings without sophisticated urban plan strategies and necessary consideration of huacas. Some Huacas in Maranga complex are right now even in danger of physically disappearing due to the pressure of the developments.
As a consequence, borders were built to protect Huacas from the illegal invention brought by rapid urban growth, however, this physical borders eliminate the dialogue between this heritage sites and the city. The borders render the huacas as almost invisible on the streetscape and cut down the social, economical and cultural linkage between them, the citizens and the urban environment citizens.
The development mode of the urban components is in a centrepid and autonomous pattern, borders are left underdeveloped, which resulted in a lack of dialogue and an absence of interactions of activities, social participations and exchanges within the in-between space and the urban components it defined. Similarly, borders are taking shape in various forms throughout the whole city.
Acknowledging borders as an ubiquitous and important urban phenomenon, we approach the project by examining the element of the “border”, converting it into a permeable living space that accommodating student housings, educational programs, cultural facilities, creative industries which are lacking now in this district. By introducing the living borders with an integrated platform at various height and accesses, the intimate relationship of Maranga complex and the city is brought back.
The living border acts as a planning tool for directing development in the city. At district scale the addition of living border would facilitate a revitalized neighborhood, thus leveraging on existing important existing heritage sites. Educational facilities and linear parks would allow new interactions, activities and social participation in the adjacent surroundings.
The linearality of the border intervention enables a vision of North-South urban spine that connects Maranga and the campuses to the coast, as well provides a replicable solution for the future development of the other urban nodes throughout the city.