GEA | Taller Proyectual

Architects: Miguel A. Arias, Paola Silva, David Villegas
Project: GEA
Location: Medellín, Colombia
Photography: Miguel A. Arias, Paola Silva, David Villegas
Team: Miguel A. Arias, Paola Silva, David Villegas
Client: Institute for advanced architecture of Catalonia
Award: 6th advanced architecture contest, finalist project
Year: 2016

The minery is a global event that has constantly wasted the planet for a long time, now this is one of the most serious environmental issues in addition to this the remarkable overcrowding in cities which leads to higher energy costs and higher food consumption, is why the "GEA" initiative arises which aims to restore life to places inert victims of mining and exploitation and in turn make them fertile land for the production and the resurgence of habitat and the environment.

Due to the migration to the cities, human occupation of the territory is less, then large areas for food production, environmental remediation and biodiversity will be released.

They arise opportunities to increase the efficiency of production systems and distribution that sustain life in the cities, in the final analysis, the concentration of thousands of people in a small space facilitates access to consumer goods, reduce costs and distances transport and waste production focuses on smaller areas, all these events will reduce the ecological footprint.

Intervention strategies

- Create complex applicable to all affected areas.

- From this complex, regenerate the environment decontaminating the atmosphere and the natural resources.

- Create self-sufficent systems as clean energy generation and vertical farms.

- From different processes such as creating compost and vermiculture, the soils are regenerated and proceeds to restore the vegetation cover to create ecosystems that adhere to the pre-existing nature.

- Create different vocations for each complex to be complementary and generate rotations production.

- Create a self-sufficent clean system to provide transport passengers and merchandise to the complex and distributors.

- Articulate through biotic restoration of urban centers in nearby villages to the city and create these dense vegetation cover containing human expansion over the territories and prevent the conurbation and informal settlements.

Location

Colombia is currently one of the most mining countries in the world, and even worse is that most of it is illegal for which there are no standards and environmental regulations. Antioquia is the largest mining region and its capital Medellin has several quarries inside and its peripheries has significant mineral deposits that has been exploited and that have significantly degraded the region, so the city of Medellin and its surrounding areas are ideal to start to implement the project which can be replicated later in all mining areas of the world.