Final Project - Edge Housing

Coastal hills present a highly fragile ecosystem. Urban pressure has rapidly destroyed large extensions of this ecosystem along the Peruvian coast.

The project aims to defend and recover this landscape of the El Paraíso ravine, Villa María del Triunfo, understanding the vital cycle of this ecosystem. It seeks to protect the natural space while contemplating the needs of the area's inhabitants.

To do this, the urban-natural limit is defined, delimited, and revealed. Where the city and nature converge as permeable and collective space. First, a master plan called 'the space trapped at the limit' is developed. It establishes a permeable edge that can contain urban growth. Additionally, it contains housing and necessary urban infrastructure in this highly precarious urban system. Finally, a fog-catching park is developed that generates a revaluation of the site while collecting fog water.

Masterplan: The Space Trapped at the Limit

The Edge-Housing and Edge-Equipment 4 are located at strategic points of the ravine's edge space. These buildings control illegal urban expansion through architecture as they are forceful, permeable, light, and bar-shaped. Additionally, they introduce public space to the area.

The master plan also comprises a park with fog-catching devices as a water collection and native flora regeneration network. A light and organic system that reveals with its presence the limit between the city and the coastal hill.

These systems formed by Edge-Housing, Edge-Equipment, infrastructure, public space, and the fog-catching park provide opportune spaces or buildings for coastal hill protection.

The Edge-Housing

The bar is formed by three attached modules that adapt to the slope. It presents a mixed program: housing, common spaces, urban infrastructure, workshops, nurseries, and commerce.

At the base of the bar, infrastructure such as library, daycare, communal multipurpose room, etc. is located. These are located above ground level and in front of the entrance plazas of each module.

Additionally, the modules comprise terraces as common open spaces. Small businesses, workshops, and nurseries are located in front of these spaces.

Circulation develops on a central axis that runs through the bar in its three modules. Fog catchers are implanted over the bar's common space and towards the back, terraced areas with urban crops are located.

Finally, the base structure is concrete while the upper levels are built with bamboo structure with a maximum height of 3 floors in this material. Raschel mesh is used for fog catchers.