Una cancha Muchas Canchas |
Guatemala City, Guatemala
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Problem
How can municipalities provide poor neighborhoods with a small number of public spaces that supports quality activities access to public parks and open space and provide opportunities for the urban youth? |
Solution
create a pop-up network of urban pick-up soccer fields in the middle of the city by transforming low-traffic streets into low-cost and high impact painted fields that created neighborhood participation and community collaboration |
Description
Moving away from car-centric urban planning and rethinking the role of the street in the city has only recently become a serious consideration, and the vast majority of streets worldwide remain intimidating places for anything other than a car. With the city government unable to provide ample open and public spaces in Guatemala City, the Bureau of Public Interventions, a collaborative project, originated as a direct response to these lack of infrastructural amenities for recreation and socialization. Incorporating urban interventions by changing the street into pick-up soccer fields, they have successfully modified the way in which citizens relate with the open spaces and have engaged the youth to experience a positive part of the built environment.
Sometimes all that is necessary is to create a good public space is to make people feel better about living in the city and redefine the importance of the public realm. With a Gamechangers grant from Nike the design team worked with the municipality and the community to design and construct two low cost “pilot” street football pitches in different low-income residential areas around the city. The proposed sites for the fields are to be low-traffic city streets. By changing what occurs in the street, we can start to make smarter approaches to urban planning and a more holistic interpretation of a city. |
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$ ☺ ჻ ⌨ ☆ |
██ ██ ██ ██ funded through the GAMECHANGERS Sports Micro-Venture Fund grant Architecture for Humanity, Guatemala City, Buró de Intervenciones Públicas (BIP), Stefan Benchoam and Christian Ochaita, Nike Gamechangers Program, community members, urban youth. Social: makes public spaces in a marginal neighborhood with few open spaces, efficient use of community assets Environmental: transforms streets into low-traffic networks, reduces pollution, and incentivizes exercise. Fluorescent pavement floor lines that add security, two goal posts that are both movable and secured transform a street into a public space, traffic calming speed bumps behind each end of the field, vertical and horizontal signage Changing the role of the street in the city from being just for cars to fulfilling multiple sociocultural functions |
Benefits
Activates the youth on the streets in a new and positive way Creates mix-use street design that highlights the accessibility of different urban groups Provides public space opportunities in the city Low cost and easily implementable in other scales and contexts Enriches the neighborhood identity by enhancing the public realm |
Negatives
Can only be implemented in low-traffic streets |
Links
http://www.plataformaarquitectura.cl/cl/02-244535/una-cancha-muchas-canchas-architecture-for-humanity
http://elbipbip.com/una-cancha-muchas-canchas
http://openarchitecturenetwork.org/projects/muchas_canchas
http://www.plataformaarquitectura.cl/cl/02-244535/una-cancha-muchas-canchas-architecture-for-humanity
http://elbipbip.com/una-cancha-muchas-canchas
http://openarchitecturenetwork.org/projects/muchas_canchas