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Architects: Bastidas y Salinas, Emilia Monteverde
- Area: 4100 m²
- Year: 2022
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Photographs:Diego González
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Manufacturers: Graveuca
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Lead Architects: Emilia Monteverde, Ana Valenzuela, Gabriel García
Text description provided by the architects. The Sucre Boulevard is an urban renewal project located in the town of El Hatillo, located southeast of the city of Caracas. A place declared a national monument for its historical value and preservation of colonial architecture. An area with enormous tourist potential, but with severe deficiencies in connectivity and services.
The objective of the project was to restore a marginalized area of the town due to traffic chaos, the appropriation of the street by unused vehicles, and consequently the abandonment of public space. In this sense, the main strategy was to consider pedestrians a priority within the uses of the place, limit vehicular traffic, widen sidewalks to avoid parked cars, and probably most importantly, dissolve the sidewalk to allow the flow of pedestrian traffic throughout the intervention area.
Design as a mediator between tradition and innovation. El Hatillo is a place that allows us to imagine a sensitive relationship between tradition and innovation. In this sense, materiality was a variable that allowed us to establish links with pre-existing elements but also an opportunity to experiment with the geometry that defines different spaces. We designed a radial composition pattern that is projected on the floor and densifies and expands according to the circumstance, with the intention of connecting commercial spaces and important connection points such as Santa Rosalía Street, which connects the boulevard with Plaza Bolívar de El Hatillo, and Sucre Plaza, a deteriorating space that was also completely renovated to be part of the system.
Tectonics and atmosphere. Stamped and brushed concrete was the fundamental material for the construction of pavement and urban furniture, stone slabs for the containment of sloping planters, and stainless steel railings for the slope that rises above Sucre Plaza.
The furniture was designed in such a way that it invites the user to wander and explore the scenes randomly. Curved benches and concrete spheres apparently arranged arbitrarily on the pavement lines generate a sense of continuity and fluidity and invite recognition of the city as a playful territory and a meeting place for citizens.
