[Blurring Boundaries]

Designer(s): Reza Nik

In 2001, Argentina suffered an economic collapse that almost wiped out the middle-class, leaving thousands homeless. This resulted in the growth of the informal settlements and informal sectors of employment in and around the formal city of Buenos Aires, the “Capital Federal.”

The collapse put 52 percent of the population below the poverty line and significantly increased the social gap in the country. The urgency for survival led to the rise of many waste-pickers, the urban recyclers who became known as the cartoneros. Initially prosecuted by the police and the government, they are now the primary recycling program in the city with an estimated 20,000 individuals who travel from the many bordering informal settlements to the city daily. They work hard to make ends meet while recycling for 13.6 million inhabitants of this megacity. However, they are still highly discriminated against and generally ignored by society.

The lack of an efficient waste management system in Buenos Aires means that much of the 5,000 tons of trash produced daily languishes in the streets. In 2005, the city adopted a Zero Waste policy to address the on-going trash problem, and the cartoneros will play a large role in this transformation.

This proposal aims to address two complex social issues - disparity and waste - with a bottom-up experimental inititiative which hopes to ultimately blur the social boundaries that exist in the “Paris of the South” via the cartoneros.

Initia concept drawings + models Site + Phases Rooftop Bugs Concept Plans & View from Bridge Views of proposed Co-op within the traintracks 1:500 Final Model built onto found piano sounboard Longitudinal Section of Co-op Exploded Axonometric diagram of all phases of the proposal

text and photos :http://www.archiprix.org/2015/index.php?project=3524