Pure Space: Expanding the Public Sphere Through Public Space Transformations in Latin American Spontaneous Settlements

Description

This book may seem a simple accumulation of twenty-one public space projects in eight Latin American cities. On closer inspection, the presentation of project descriptions, photographs, and annotated drawings reflects a concern to analytically explain the operative aspects at work. The publication is not intended to serve only as a catalogue, guide, or manual on how to produce public space in spontaneous settlements. Rather, it goes beyond the aims of an index of best practices. It is intended, instead, as an empirical base for a critical and theoretical engagement with the problematic of development, social inclusion, public investment, (in)formal settlement, civil society and the public sphere. Pure Space achieves its final function at this third level, by providing a compelling argument to expand the agency of architects and urban designers and creatively find ways of justifying, financing, and building public spaces in communities --spaces that have a catalytic effectiveness in achieving significant urban and social transformation. This book was awarded by a Graham Foundation Grant and CAF Development Bank of Latin America.

Elisa Silva is director and founder of Enlace Arquitectura 2007 and Enlace Foundation 2017, established in Caracas, Venezuela. Projects focus on raising awareness of spatial inequality and the urban environment through public space, the integration of informal settlements and community engagement in rural landscapes. Public space interventions in informal settlements through didactic and participatory methodologies are central to the firms practice and were awarded in the XX Architecture and Urbanism Biennial in Valparaiso, Chile 2017. She has co-authored Pro-Inclusion: Practical tools for the integral development of Latin American cities (CAF Development Bank of Latin America, 2016) presented at Habitat III in Quito; and CABA Cartography of the Caracas Barrios 1966-2014 (Fundacion Espacio 2015), widely recognized as a seminal contribution to the citys urban history records. Elisa was awarded the Wheelwright Fellowship in 2011 and the Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome in 2005. She was Design Critic in Landscape Architecture at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design in 2018 and has taught workshops at the Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya in Barcelona, Spain and the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Peru in Lima, Peru. She has taught at the Simon Bolivar University in Caracas, Venezuela since 2011 and is a consultant to CAF and UN Habitat. Elisa grew up between St. Louis and Venezuela.