Design for Dignity: Lessons from Medellin
Fernando Villa, FAIA, NOMA, LEED AP BD+C
While still in my third year at the Pontificia Bolivariana University’s school of architecture in Medellin Colombia, my teacher, Alvaro Restrepo, brought me on to work for Cooperativa de Habitaciones, which was the best public/private entity in the City doing social housing for middle- and low-income homeowners. I got to be involved in the design and construction of multi-family projects creating around 1,000 units in the metropolitan area and that was where my passion for affordable housing was born.
In Colombia at that time, there wasn’t really an affordable housing industry, certainly not the way it had taken shape here in New York. But the need was clear, not just for housing, but for housing with dignity. I saw how people needed more than a place to live, they needed a home where their children could learn, their families could grow, their parents could age. And they needed that home to be a place that they could take pride in. If you can’t have all that in your home, then it’s not the place of stability that we imagine when we’re designing and building. In every one of my designs, from Medellin and later San Andres to those I make today here in New York, that idea of housing with dignity has been the number one goal.
A few months ago, we had the good fortune to tour two recent MAP buildings, East Clarke Place Senior Residence and St. Augustine Terrace, with a delegation from Colombia including the governor of my home province Antioquia, Anibal Gaviria, Director for Department of Planning for the Government of Antioquia, Claudia Garcia Loboguerrero and Jorge Pérez-Jaramillo, an architect, urban planner, author, and Planning and Housing consultant for the Governor.
Left to Right: Anibal Gaviria, Fernando Villa, Jorge Pérez-Jaramillo, and Claudia Garcia Loboguerrero.
Jorge is a good friend who is a former dean of the architecture school in Medellin and served as the city’s Director of Urban Planning, from 2012-2015. After our tour, he joined us in the MAP studio to discuss a number of urban revitalization projects there, including community redevelopment, public transit, riverfront restoration and more.
I was struck by the commitment to their public architecture not just in terms of aesthetics but to achieving the positive social impacts that underly each of their projects. We heard that architecture and infrastructure are opportunities. That it’s how people get access to things that they need and that public budgets were being invested in places that needed it most. Consistently among the aims is the idea of inclusivity and a sense that everyone has value, everyone should have quality housing and education and enjoy wonderful amenities. I highly recommend Jorge’s book Medellín: Urbanismo y Sociedad, 2019, Turner Editors México-Madrid and learning more about his organization MDE Urban Lab as well as the work of the Governor’s housing entity.
One of the best things that publicly supported architecture can do, is to show people that they matter. Particularly in a time when so many of us feel disconnected, making wonderful spaces and ensuring that they benefit everyone, is an important step toward more integrated communities.
In our affordable housing work, there are many specific ways to meet this challenge but really, they start with prioritizing health (physical and mental) and sustainability. That approach leads quickly to great community spaces with shared views and connections to the outdoors, lots natural light in common spaces and private ones, healthy material choices, better indoor air quality and reduced carbon emissions. It’s about providing the things we all want, because, in the end, we all deserve good design.