Juan Moreno I

About This Project

On this occasion Tracing Spaces supported the Casas Blancas Comprehensive Urban Development Project of the Santa Teresa Foundation in Juan Moreno. During the months of September to December 2015, we developed a workshop for 12 young people, all from the area.

We started by OBSERVING, we learned about public space and went out to look for it in the community. Many of the participants realized that, although they passed through certain areas every day, they had not stopped to identify abandoned spaces with potential for transformation. At the end of this stage, we held a photography and mapping exhibition where we invited the entire community. Together we chose the place to intervene: an abandoned corner of the Church.

The second step was to IMAGINE. The learning at this stage was about proportions, measurements, and understanding what kind of activity can take place in space. To expand the references of public spaces of the participants we traveled to Caracas, the capital.

With a broader understanding of the different possibilities, we got to work. Each child developed their idea for the chosen space and, as in the previous step, we held an exhibition where the community chose the design they liked the most. It is here where our team of architects adapted the children’s ideas to reality in order to move on to the TRANSFORMATION stage.

Already in the last month, all our ideas materialized. The need for a court to play marbles was what gave rise to La Plaza de Las Metras, which was built with the collaboration of all the children of the workshop and several residents of the place. Today the abandoned space has a name, the children play in it, the neighbors now have a meeting place where from time to time they hold a domino tournament or an open-air mass. The greatest success of this space is that the neighbors have promised to take care of it by watering the mural plants regularly.