CityMakers, The Global Community of Architects Who Learn from Exemplary Cities and Their Makers, is working with ArchDaily to publish a series of articles about Barcelona, Medellin, and Rotterdam. The authors are the architects, urban planners, and/or strategists of the projects that have transformed these three cities, which are visited in the "Schools of Cities" and studied in the "Documentary-Courses" made by CityMakers. On this occasion, Alejandro Restrepo Montoya, Director of Urban Planning and Architecture of Medellín, presents his article "Environmental Urbanism and Urban Geographies, Medellín 2024-2027"
Medellín's urban plan focuses on answering how urban planning can improve people's quality of life. By developing its proposal, the city is promoting the social benefits that these urban planning practices can generate. Medellín emphasizes the use of natural and environmental conditions, such as valleys, streams, rivers, mountains, and hills, to develop urban planning criteria that address social needs.
The city has placed significant focus on recognizing and harnessing its natural elements as part of its environmental urbanism strategy. This approach not only aims to beautify the city but also to tackle issues of inequality, access to education, housing, and public transportation. Urban planning in Medellín is rooted in identifying specific local needs to structure strategies that enhance the lives of its citizens. This process involves a thorough analysis of environmental conditions and their potential to be integrated into urban solutions for community benefit.
Related Article
The Urban Transformation of Medellín: A Case StudyThese urban planning criteria are designed to be inclusive and sustainable, ensuring that proposed solutions are not only effective in the short term but also enduring and adaptable to future needs. Environmental urbanism in Medellín serves as a model that can be adopted in other contexts, demonstrating the possibility of creating more equitable and habitable cities by integrating nature into urban infrastructure. This approach enables comprehensive addressing of social and environmental challenges, promoting a better quality of life for all residents.
Environmental urbanism represents a philosophy of urban development that prioritizes both human needs and the sustainability of the natural environment. For Medellín, it is a key tool for transforming the city into a more resilient and just place, where urban policies align with environmental protection and social well-being. Through this approach, Medellín is leading the way towards a more sustainable and equitable urban future.
Medellín´s Urban Plan for 2024-2027
Territory and social needs as starting points
Medellin´s 2024-2027 urban plan is based on the recognition of environmental preexistences such as mountains, streams, rivers, and hills, and the city´s social needs. This approach will allow the creation of approximately 30 million square meters of new public spaces. These spaces will be designed to encourage community gatherings and interaction with nature, integrating natural and urban ecosystems. Nature-based solutions will be used to transform these spaces into areas conducive to social, cultural, educational, recreational, and sporting activities, promoting well-being and social cohesion.
Urban Planning
The plan focuses on a sustainable strategy that respects the geographical and natural characteristics of the territory. Proposed interventions include watershed restoration, stream cleaning, and the creation of public spaces on different slopes of the city. In high slopes, water source conditions will be reviewed; in middle slopes, the development of streams will be evident, connecting them with existing urban streets and neighborhood public spaces; and in low slopes, opportunities will be seized along the riverbanks to generate new projects. This comprehensive planning aims to improve citizens' quality of life by integrating environmental criteria into urban development, ensuring that new interventions are sustainable and beneficial for the entire community.
Urban Structure
Medellín´s 2024-2027 urban plan is based on five key points:
- Valley Geographies: Planning emphasis is on valley geographies, comprising mountains, streams, hills, and rivers, as the basis for planning.
- Streams and River System: They require cleaning and the creation of public spaces for access. Planning includes the recovery of these natural elements and their integration into the urban structure, facilitating the connection between inhabitants and nature. Additionally, water sanitation and the revaluation of these spaces as public areas are proposed.
- Green Corridors: These are essential for the plan, considering the city's historical informal growth towards the periphery, which has increased risks in the higher slopes. These corridors aim to reconnect the city with its original geography, allowing natural periphery integration into the urban interior. By inserting nature into the urban fabric, connections between neighborhood parks, streambanks, and protective hillsides are created, forming an interconnected public space ecosystem. This approach not only beautifies the city but also promotes more sustainable and equitable urban development.
- Blue Corridors: Focused on stream cleaning and the creation of public spaces around them. Medellín has 4,217 streams, 56 of which are main tributaries of the Aburrá River and 4,161 are secondary tributaries. They form an almost 1,900-kilometer water network, with high potential for urban planning due to their extension.
- Natural growth from the periphery to the center: These blue corridors not only improve water quality but also define new conditions for occupying stream edges. This includes the possibility of developing public services, health, education, and cultural projects, thus addressing the needs of local communities. Together, green and blue corridors promote natural urban growth from the periphery to the center, integrating natural elements that facilitate the insertion of future sustainable and cohesive projects in the city.
Projects
General Urban Plan: ecological and social connectivity
As part of Medellín´s 2024-2027 urban planning, the insertion of various projects that complement the urban structure based on natural elements is contemplated. This plan includes a budget allocated for the construction of 50 social infrastructures, including educational, cultural, recreational, and sports areas. These infrastructures will be strategically distributed in the city's 16 communes and 5 townships (corregimientos, in Spanish) in the rural area, ensuring that each community has access to these benefits. The overall planning not only focuses on creating physical spaces but also on promoting ecological and social connectivity that unites the entire city.
Blue corridors: Stream linear parks
Blue corridors developed as linear parks along streams are one of the pillars of this plan. These corridors not only aim to clean and beautify streams but also to integrate them into Medellín's urban life. A healthier and more sustainable environment is promoted by transforming these spaces into accessible and usable areas for the community. Blue corridors represent a crucial strategy for revitalizing areas adjacent to streams and reconnecting them with the urban fabric.
Green Corridors: Geography in Urban Fabric
Simultaneously, green corridors play an essential role in this planning. These corridors extend from the peripheries to the city center, creating a green belt that rediscovers and recovers lost public spaces. By integrating them into the urban fabric, green corridors allow the reconnection of different areas of the city with nature. This strategy not only helps mitigate the effects of informal growth but also offers residents recreational and meeting spaces amidst a revitalized natural environment.
The focus on ecological and social connectivity aims to establish an interconnected network of public spaces that improves citizens' quality of life. Promoting the integration of climatic corridors creates urban infrastructure that facilitates mobility and access to basic services, while also promoting a healthier and more sustainable lifestyle. This environmental urbanism model places Medellín at the forefront of cities seeking to balance urban development with the preservation and valorization of their natural resources.
Hillside Parks and Neighborhood Parks
Hillside parks and neighborhood parks emerge as fundamental elements in the context of urban fabric integration. Hillside parks, located on the city's edges, are green corridors that directly connect to the natural periphery not yet occupied by informal growth. Neighborhood parks, on the other hand, act as vital meeting points for communities but need to be spatially and environmentally integrated with vegetation and trees that facilitate connections with green corridors from the hillsides and periphery. These parks become structuring axes of urban fabric, providing public spaces for community congregations in neighborhoods, peripheries, and river edges.
Tutelary Hills
The municipality of Medellín will intervene in four tutelary hills with nature-based solutions: El Volador, La Asomadera, Las Tres Cruces, and El Nutibara. These hills will be transformed into fauna and flora reserves, as well as massive vegetation planting spaces contributing to air purification. The Perpetuo Socorro creative district will be developed between the Nutibara and Asomadera hills, which will be a sustainable connection with green corridors and public spaces that will foster social and creative activities. This district will become a sustainability model, promoting the integration of hills and urban areas through ecological solutions. The planning of these integrated spaces not only addresses environmental aspects but also sustainable mobility. The creation of pedestrian and non-motorized routes within the urban fabric will reduce emissions and improve air quality, transforming Medellín into a healthier and less polluted city.
Housing
New housing: The pursuit of equity and greater social opportunities drives the planning and construction of new housing. The municipality of Medellín has committed to building 1,500 new homes, with the possibility of increasing this number through partnerships with private companies.
Urban re-densification
The aim is to avoid the construction of large concentrations of isolated housing from public services and urban infrastructure, opting for an urban re-densification strategy on existing lots within neighborhoods. This approach aims to create a more compact and denser city, incorporating new residential buildings in established urban areas.
The urban re-densification concept proposed by Medellín involves identifying opportunity lots in neighborhoods where housing density can gradually increase. This approach aims to protect current residents, prevent gentrification, and improve the quality of life in traditional neighborhoods while addressing the housing deficit. It is envisaged that this strategy will allow the city to replicate this model in the coming years, not only to address the housing deficit but also to create more sustainable and resilient urban spaces.
The proposed urban re-densification is a sustainable solution that seeks to balance urban development with the preservation of identity and community in neighborhoods. By allowing the construction of high-rise housing under appropriate regulations, the coexistence of new residents with those who have lived in the neighborhoods for many years is ensured. This approach not only addresses the need for housing but also promotes social inclusion and comprehensive urban development in Medellín and can serve as a replicable model in other urban contexts.
Find below other projects that complement the comprehensive vision of urban development in Medellín.
Social and Environmental Care Centers, CASA Cultura
The Social and Environmental Care Centers are spaces for culture that will be integrated into the community fabric near stream systems and natural ecosystems. These centers will be located on lots owned by the Medellín district and will serve as spaces where communities can participate in a variety of cultural and educational activities. Especially, the Music Houses, which are integrated into the existing network and will promote the training of new talents in art and music, thus opening new opportunities for local communities. This initiative responds to an identified social need and is inserted in the geographical and urban context of the city, promoting access to cultural and educational activities that contribute to improving quality of life and citizen participation.
Social and Environmental Care Centers, CASA Academia
The Casa Academia buildings are intended to be social care and academic activities centers. These spaces will help address the educational infrastructure deficit in the city and promote social reconstruction through education. They will not only offer basic and secondary education opportunities but also technological and university education, providing children and neighborhood residents with education close to their homes. Casa Academia will be integrated with public space and creative and academic activities, promoting interconnection with neighborhoods. They will act as seeds distributed throughout the city, improving educational quality and fostering social, family, and environmental development by integrating natural urban contexts with these projects.
Social and Environmental Care Centers, CASA Deporte
These buildings represent an innovative infrastructure that will revitalize existing sports spaces in Medellín. Currently, many of these spaces are in poor condition, so renovations will be carried out in around 1,030 sports venues already recognized by the community. Additionally, new Casa Deporte facilities will be developed, consisting of vertical gyms designed in collaboration with ETH Zurich and the Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana de Medellín UPB. These multifunctional buildings will include community support services on the lower levels, such as commercial premises and cafes, and sports facilities on the upper floors, including running tracks, basketball courts, volleyball, and football fields. This approach will not only improve sports infrastructure but also promote the use of public space and institutional offerings, creating a more equitable, healthy, and accessible city for all its inhabitants.
Medellín envisions itself as a sustainable and equitable city, where environmental urbanism plays a crucial role in creating new opportunities for the community. This approach will significantly increase the amount of public space, to add 30 million square meters in the next 20 years. This growth will be based on the recognition and integration of the city's geographical pre-existences, such as mountains, streams, the river, and tutelary hills. Environmental urbanism will not only be the axis of territorial planning but also a response to social needs, addressing the housing, education, culture, and sports deficit. An interconnected city will be promoted through natural public spaces, non-motorized routes, and sustainable public transportation, such as electric buses. This integrative vision seeks to improve citizens' quality of life by building a more equitable city, based on collective participation and long-term planning that projects community well-being in the years to come.
References
- (Cooper 2019) Mayor’s Office of Medelín, Cooper, Adriana, Restrepo Montoya, Alejandro.2019. Back to the Tropics. De Vuelta al Trópico. Medellín: Publisher Municipio de Medellín. Edited by Mesaestandar.
- (Palacio 2019) Palacio, Paula. 2019. Interview. Secretary of Physical Infrastructure of Medellín. Secretaría de Infraestructura Física de Medellín 2016–2019.
- The Office of the Mayor of Medellín. 2019. Chapter 1: Citizen Trust. In Medellín: 2016–2019: A Government for the People. Edited by: Taller de Edición S. A. Medellín: Publisher Municipio de Medellín.
- (The Office of the Mayor of Medellín 2019b) The Office of the Mayor of Medellín. 2019b. Chapter 3: Environmental Urban Planning. In Medellín: 2016–2019: A Government for the People. . Edited by: Taller de Edición S. A. Medellín: Publisher Municipio de Medellín.
- (The Office of the Mayor of Medellín 2019c) The Office of the Mayor of Medellín. 2019c. The 2016–2019 “United for Water” Program. Available online: https://unidosporelagua.com.co (accessed on 7 January 2020).
- (United Nations 2019) United Nations. 2019. Sustainable Development Goal 11: Make Cities and Human Settlements Inclusive, Safe, Resilient and Sustainable. Available online: https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdg11 (accessed on 9 January 2020).
Alejandro Restrepo Montoya is a Doctor of Engineering and Architecture, who graduated with academic honors from the Technical University of Munich, Germany, in 2018. Architect and urban planner graduated with academic honors from the Pontifical Bolivarian University (UPB) of Medellín in 1996. Director of Strategic Urban Projects of Medellín from 2016 to 2019, and Director of Urban Planning and Architecture of Medellín since January 2024. Holder of three scientific invention patents in Colombia and Panama. He has projects in Sarajevo, Mexico, Panama, the Dominican Republic, the United States, and various cities in Colombia. His work has been distinguished both internationally and nationally with professional and academic awards and recognitions. University professor in Switzerland, Germany, the United States, Japan, Brazil, and Colombia.
