Submitted by nicole_alves on Tue, 04/01/2025 - 15:42 | Editado por nicole_alves há 2 weeks.
Photo: Pedro Vieira
Students from the Pontifical Catholic University in Valparaíso (PUCV), Chile, have accomplished an architecture and design project in Mariana’s Santo Antonio neighborhood. The initiative comes from the Travessia project, the result of a partnership between the Chilean university and Federal University of Ouro Preto (UFOP).
The architectural construction includes a square-theatre and an artistic mural painting near the “Prainha” bridge, as the neighborhood is commonly known.
In 2024, the group pledged to finish the work initiated in 2023. Andres Garces, Professor of Architecture and Design in PUCV, says that they were in debt to the community due to the weather conditions in 2023. “There was a very strong storm in the last three days and we couldn't finish it, so we decided to go back to work,” he explains.
Similarly, this year, the weather conditions were fluctuating between rain and sun, making it necessary to improvise in order to complete the work. This is what a Chilean student, Rodolfo Barbosa, explains: “Even though we have planned and prepared the materials, the rain makes everything more difficult”.
As well as being an experience that enables cultural exchange between the students, those involved have been able to develop activities that go beyond workshops and classrooms, as Lorna Sagnard and Axel Bouvier, from the École Nationale Supérieure d'Architecture de Marseille in France and the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland, say.
The project also involved children from the community voluntary participation. Mauricio Vegas, also an Architecture and Design professor at PUC Valparaíso, explains that “the children are mainly involved in creating the mural based on their feelings and how they see their neighborhood”.
The work was inaugurated on November 24, 2024 with artistic performances.
