Student Project | Juan Manuel Sandoval Perdomo | Translations: The Utopy and the Performative Void

Translations is the sum of two projects or strategies in the same place, two opposing strategies that open the range of how to intervene the urban void. These strategies are applied in the Sabana Station from Bogotá, as it is a vacant lot with all the possible potential to change the course of the city, but also with the risk of being wasted and being another space without transcendence beyond its time.

In detail, the first strategy it´s called The Utopy. It consists of composing from objects and actors. For this, Koolhaas, Tschumi and Hejduk are used as theoretical inputs. The second strategy it´s called the performative void. It consists of compose from the same void. For this, Clement, Miralles, Latz&Partner are used as theoretical references.

  1. THE UTOPY: “compose from the objects”.

This is an architecture whose purpose is not to be built, it´s based on the failed ambitions of master plans. This Utopy shows a universe contained within a forest of skyscrapers. Its intention is to protect those who have not been heard. They, forgotten, become the protagonists of this manifesto. Each actor of the Sabana Station personifies a “confetti”, “Folie” or a “victim” who interacts with the other personifications so that in a timeline the identity of the place is recovered and the station ceases to be a generic and abandoned place. The project is inspired by the OMA representation of the Parc La Villette competition.

2. THE PERFORMATIVE VOID: “compose from the same void”.

The “urban voids” has the potential to become the opposite: a climax of life. However, in order to not be another generic public space. We must understand the different actors, activities and their timeline. That´s why there are three different scenarios: natural, urban and productive. Each scenario has its own timeline and different actors. In detail, it was necessary to investigate each species of tree, fruit, animal, human activities, etc. including their life cycles and their environment to see how their evolution was possible in the scenarios and in time.

Both visions, with their respective and particular representation, are put to the test in a 100-year timeline to see how they advance, decline and/or evolve in order to offer two points of view of how the void could be intervened.

Student Project | Translations: The Utopy and the Performative Void | Juan Manuel Sandoval Perdomo

Students Name:

Juan Manuel Sandoval Perdomo

University:

Universidad de los Andes, Colombia

Supervisors:

Claudio Rossi – (Project)

Iván Lizcano – (Analysis)

Daniela Atencio – (Representation)

About Terren Shi 116 Articles
Terren is an emerging graduate landscape architect with a passion for design theory and history. She holds a Bachelor of Design and a Master of Landscape Architecture from the University of Melbourne, which she completed in 2020 and 2022 respectively. Currently, Terren works as a sessional tutor at the Melbourne School of Design. She also contributes interviews and essays on landscape architecture and design.