Tag: cartagena | ArchDaily

7 Unbuilt Houses Shaped by Site, Climate, and Constraints

Nour Fakharany — Fri, 17 Apr 2026 07:30:00 +0000

Residential architecture continues to offer a productive ground for unbuilt exploration, revealing how architects respond to site, climate, and constraint at the scale of the domestic. In this Unbuilt edition, submitted by the ArchDaily community, the selected projects bring together a range of proposals that reconsider the house not as an isolated object, but as a spatial system shaped by its environment. These works position architecture as a framework that negotiates between ground, material, and inhabitation, often emerging directly from the conditions of the site.

Hotel + Social Community Center / MEII ESTUDIO

Valentina Díaz — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 06:00:00 +0000

The void left in the heart of a neighborhood when a school closes is difficult to fill. This was the case with this 1970s school, built according to the same standards as many others of its time in southeastern Spain. When the educational program was relocated, the life and activity once linked to the school disappeared, leaving behind an empty building at the center of the neighborhood.

Habitat Module / MEII ESTUDIO

Valentina Díaz — Wed, 08 Oct 2025 12:00:00 +0000

Space exploration has left us a legacy beyond science: the ability to maximize livable spaces. Habitat modules are an integral part of spacecraft, functioning as autonomous and compact units that encompass all the basic necessities for life in space.

Cruda House / MEII ESTUDIO

Valentina Díaz — Mon, 14 Jul 2025 10:00:00 +0000

At Cruda House, two levels are clearly distinguished: a renovated base, floor, and wall coverings, and an upper part that remains bare, authentic, and intact. Thus, in a single continuous space, the new and the existing, the technical and the artisanal, the repaired and the preserved coexist; a synthesis between past and present that allows one to inhabit time in all its layers.

Revitalizing Territories in Colombia: Comprehensive Acupunctures for Urban and Social Transformation

Agustina Iñiguez — Sat, 22 Mar 2025 07:30:00 +0000

What urban and social transformations do our cities require today? How can urban planning and design contribute to improving the experience of their inhabitants in urban spaces? As Andreea Cutieru explains, urban acupuncture refers to the improvement of social and urban issues through precise interventions capable of revitalizing specific areas of cities and consolidating urban planning strategies. The +VIDA program represents a comprehensive strategy for urban and social transformation in territories, strategically focused on vulnerable populations in the Colombian Caribbean. It encourages the collective construction of cities through the exchange of knowledge, intelligence, and expertise, with the aim of transforming the habitat in an integrated manner.

The Standardized Planning of Latin American Cities: Tracing the Blueprint of the Laws of the Indies

Moises Carrasco — Thu, 12 Dec 2024 05:00:00 +0000

A look at most of the cities within Latin America reveals striking commonalities across countries, from Mexico down to Argentina: most cities have a well-defined area known as "El Centro" (The Center), anchored by a main plaza (Plaza Mayor), flanked by a church on one side and key buildings like the city hall on another. This is no coincidence, as it can be traced back to an urban planning system established during the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the 17th and 18th centuries. It gave standardized guidelines for city design across its viceroyalties. Unlike French and English colonies, Spanish settlements adhered to regulations that contributed to the emergence of a shared urban identity, with cities displaying similar spatial logic and architectural cohesion despite differing scales and contexts.

House of Waters / Estudio Huma + José Amorós Martínez y Alberto Amorós Martínez

Pilar Caballero — Mon, 17 Jul 2023 01:00:00 +0000

The work is about the restoration of Casa Dorda, an old 18th-century convent built for the Carmelite nuns. The intervention highlights the social transformation that society is experiencing as a result of COVID, based on a new way of relating, where humanity prevails.

Yatch Port Changing Rooms / Estudio Huma

Pilar Caballero — Wed, 12 Apr 2023 10:00:00 +0000

To serve beyond being served as materialized meaning. The building owes itself to its function, to serve above all. Changing rooms with laundry serve all those who arrive at the port from distant lands to the city by the sea: British, Italians, French, and Dutch.

Safdie Architects Designs a Garden-Hospital in Cartagena, Colombia

Agustina Iñiguez — Wed, 10 Nov 2021 08:00:00 +0000

The Serena del Mar Hospital Center (CHSM) is the first hospital designed by Safdie Architects. Focusing on the human being, the concept revolves around the idea that "access to nature and natural light are vital in creating improved therapeutic experiences for patients, families and staff alike". Seeking to provide a sense of well-being that leads to better clinical outcomes, the hospital has started opening in phases to the public, earlier this year. The firm's first project in Latin America is not the only one, in fact, Safdie Architects are working on Qorner, a residential project under construction in Quito, Ecuador, and the Albert Einstein Education and Research Center in Brazil, to be inaugurated in early 2022.

The Molinete Museum / Temperaturas Extremas Arquitectos

Valeria Silva — Mon, 08 Jun 2020 07:00:00 +0000

The Molinete Museum project is located on the ground floor of the Casco Antiguo health center, in El Molinete hill. This space was designed so that its structure did not substantially affect the remains of the Roman Curia, around which the proposal is structured. This Health Center has been also designed by the office, finishing the construction in 2009. Now, in 2020 the Molinete Museum opens its doors to public, showing more than 20 years of archeological research concerning the Roman remains of Cartago Nova.

Tivoli Building / Martin Lejarraga Oficina de Arquitectura

Clara Ott — Sat, 18 Jan 2020 09:00:00 +0000

The project restores the original building through the recovery and preservation of its latent historical and architectural qualities. The intervention provides the necessary perspective to emphasize the value of these unique characteristics, revitalizing both the building and the surrounding urban area.

Plasencia Auditorium and Congress Center / Selgascano

Pilar Caballero — Fri, 01 Feb 2019 01:00:00 +0000

The centre is on the boundary between the town and the country, in outskirts of Plasencia, the edge between what has been touched by a less artificial humanity and what has been touched by millennia of climate. What has been touched by humanity has covered up those millennia with the sweep of a trowel in a few years. This is strange, even economically, because to do so, 15m high retainer walls had to be built. Thus, from the outset, from the competition design, we saw quite clearly that the work consisted of choosing between one of the boundary´s two sides: belonging to the city, to what has been touched by our generation, or belonging to slowness. Under these conditions it was impossible to belong to both.

Architecture City Guide: 10 Towns in Colombia That Every Architect Must Visit

Yamid Rivera — Thu, 03 May 2018 08:00:00 +0000

Calm and silence prevail in many of the municipalities of Colombia, where the ochre colors intermingle with the green of the landscape to preserve the colonial styles that characterize some of the architectural typologies of the place. Small urban centers that hide an incomparable beauty are the main attraction for many tourists who today travel to know these obscure places, where one can go to learn a little of their traditions and their culture, creating an almost perfect adventure, where heritage value becomes a characteristic in common.

8 Excellent Examples of What Innovative 21st Century Schools Should Look Like

Ana Rodríguez — Mon, 10 Apr 2017 08:00:00 +0000

If we think about how the educational system worked in the past, we can quickly see that both the teaching style in schools as well as the school’s infrastructure were very different from the current system. The educational model of the twentieth century could be defined as being similar to the "spatial model of prisons, with no interest in stimulating a comprehensive, flexible and versatile education."

Call for Submissions: Artists Residency SPOT 13

Rene Submissions — Thu, 19 Jan 2017 17:30:00 +0000

The artist residency SPOT 13 offers the opportunity to artists from all the world to access the artistic and cultural scene in Cartagena, known by its human heritage (UNESCO) and main cultural and touristic district of Colombia. Cartagena has been the center of Colombian tourism and represents one of the main Colombian cultural heritage from colonial Spanish times.

Brandon Haw Unveils Plans for University Building in Colombia

Sabrina Santos — Sat, 30 Jul 2016 16:00:00 +0000

Brandon Haw Architecture (BHA) has unveiled the plans for Serena del Mar, one of two “twin” buildings that will host the Universidad de Los Andes International School of Management in Cartagena, Colombia. As the first office and institutional building to be constructed as a part of a long term, two-phase master plan, the four-story building will additionally house offices for corporations and businesses to support the upcoming master plan, specifically a new hospital building for Johns Hopkins University.

Coupled Wagon House / Crescente Böhme Alemparte

Cristobal Rojas — Fri, 29 Apr 2016 15:00:00 +0000

Based in Cartagena, Valparaiso Chile, the project is located in a subdivision area, small plots and home built by their owners. The exact site is a parcel of land of approximately 10 x 20 meters, with a gradient of approximately 15% that runs along the lots from east to west.

La Rambla House / Rosa Ma Ballester Espigares

Cristian Aguilar — Tue, 16 Jun 2015 14:00:57 +0000

The project involved the refurbishment of an existing listed building. It is sited in an agricultural environment dedicated to irrigation cultivation. That is the reason why the regulations determined that the existing building could not be demolished in order to build a new one.