Medellín-based firm El Taller de Arquitectos has been awarded first place in the competition to redesign the public space in the municipality of La Tebaida, Colombia. Following the 1999 earthquake, much of La Tebaida's traditional architecture collapsed or was demolished; today, only the original urban grid remains recognizable, while reconstruction efforts have introduced new housing developments surrounding the historic town center.

Organized by the Mayor's Office of La Tebaida and the Colombian Society of Architects (SCA), the competition aims to equip the municipality with a public space that can host these activities in an organized, comfortable, and contextually appropriate manner, ultimately serving as an anchor for tourism and local community life.

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With the proposal "Open-Air Gallery" (Galería a cielo abierto), the team comprising Colectivo 720 and DARP - De Arquitectura y Paisaje has won second place in the design competition to renovate the public space along a two-kilometer stretch of Avenida Sexta in Cali, Colombia, between Plazoleta del Correo (Calle 12 Norte) and Parque de la Música (Calle 36 Norte).

The award-winning team's proposal is structured around four actions that aim to both "respond to the need for pedestrian infrastructure" and "generate a narrative itinerary experience, highlighting the built landscape, recognizing the natural landscape, and recalling local idiosyncrasies as a basis for the reactivation of public space," the authors explain.

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AGi architects has been awarded second place in the design competition for the future Arquerías de Nuevos Ministerios Art Center in Madrid, Spain. In the competition organized by the ENAIRE Foundation, AGi's proposed renovation strategy is guided by four principles aimed at restoring the new center as a social and cultural hub in the city of Madrid: recovery, transparency, identity, and functionality.

According to Joaquín Pérez-Goicoechea, founding partner and director of AGi architects, “reclaiming this space for public use to once again make it a hub of cultural and social activity perfectly aligns with the core principles guiding our designs: respect for local context, contemporary design, sustainability, and innovation.”

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The Paraguayan firm TDA has won first place in the design competition for the administrative headquarters of the Banco Nacional de Fomento (BNF) in the historic center of Asunción, the capital of Paraguay. The 9,000-square-meter facility will consolidate into a single location the five offices where 300 employees currently work, including a customer service center.

As previously reported by the BNF, the existing building known as Villa Adelara, declared an architectural heritage site of the city, will be converted into a cultural center. According to the organizers, this aims to turn the new project into a "revitalizing element of the Historic Center of Asunción, in line with the principles established in the Master Plan for the Historic Center of Asunción (Plan CHA)."

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The partnership of elton_léniz and Forma Colectiva has won first place in the design competition for the future educational campus of the Chilean Army War Academy in Santiago. The project includes the construction of a classroom block, a dining hall, a 750 m2 library, a 3,000 m2 office podium, an auditorium, and underground parking, in addition to the renovation of the main headquarters building and a pagoda.

The winning team proposes a design based on three operations: void—"transforming the existing historical buildings and the new classroom block into the parade ground"—, plinth—valuing "the buildings steeped in history and symbolism by bringing them together on the same level as the classroom block"—, and volume arrangement.

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The International Ideas Competition 'Mercado Modelo Montevideo: Thinking the 21st-Century City' aimed to open up urban design alternatives for an area located at the geographic center of Montevideo: a historic opportunity to envision the future in an innovative way, understanding large-scale urban structures, public spaces, residential fabrics, amenities, services, potential, and the preservation of tangible and intangible heritage.

The jury, comprising Michel Rojkind, Francesco Comerci, Gustavo Scheps, Ana Rivera, Ernesto Spósito, Jose Freitas, and Hebert Ariel Cagnoli, awarded an honorable mention to authors Jorge Gambini, Rafael Solano, Andrés Capurro, Sebastián Lambert, and Carolina Güida, alongside collaborators Fabiana Perdomo, Gabriel Rodriguez, Rodrigo Maestro, and Lucía Ifran. Explore the complete project below.

Text description provided by the architects. The following proposal was the winning entry in the National Ideas Competition for Cocó Park in Fortaleza, Ceará. Spanning 1,080 hectares of environmental conservation area cutting through the city, alongside 50 hectares of project area, it is the fourth largest urban park in Brazil. Consequently, it carries the responsibility of promoting the preservation and regeneration of an important mangrove forest, while serving the public as urban infrastructure for socio-cultural, economic, and environmental initiatives. The design proposes comprehensive solutions to integrate the 17 intervention areas requested in the competition with the rest of the conservation zone and its relationship with the surrounding city, fostering a symbiosis between park use and environmental preservation.

Colombian firm Espacio Colectivo has won first place in the design competition for the Jaime Rentería "Cuna de Campeones" Early Childhood Development Center (CDI) in Cali. This is the first CDI in Colombia to integrate sports into its pedagogical programming.

"This project is an opportunity to showcase education as a constructive act," states the winning team regarding the CDI, whose program will focus on physical activity to contribute to psychosocial development, while also integrating values and life skills, prioritizing the promotion of holistic development, collaborative work, and creativity. 

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