Exchange in the barranco: Organizing the internal economy

Abstract

This thesis problematizes the infrastructural and social boundaries of informal settlements established in anomalous depressed tissues within the gridded city. It does so by proposing a new urban strategy that intends to dissolve the edge condition as well as reconnect extracted points of the settlement as a means to pulsate the activity of the slum dwellers and to incorporate the informal settlement to the city. This new urban approach weaves the inverted topography of the barranco with two pieces of urban fabric that are interrupted. It explores La Limonada, one of Guatemala City's densest and most dangerous asentamientos situated in a barranco. The thesis grows out of three constants of this informal city: informal economies, steep grounds and lack of connectivity and proposes an acupunctural construction of exchange promenades that act as connective infrastructures, exchange platforms, and new public grounds. This Mobilizer engenders a new tectonic paradigm that serves a mediator in this gradient of exchanges between the consolidated city and the asentamiento.