URBAN PROJECTS
Me as an Urbanist
These green spaces are the lungs of the city and are essential to create the balance between nature and architecture.
Projects
Parque Luis Muñoz Marín
San Juan, Puerto Rico
Year: 2016
Site: 32.6 hectares / 83 cuerdas
Location: The Park is located between the Ave. Jesús T. Piñero and Rio Piedras River in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The total area of the site is 50 hectares /127 cuerdas.
Office: Partner at Andrés Mignucci Arquitectos
Responsibilities: Design, Construction Documents, Construction Supervision
Photos: Maribel Ortiz ( except aerial view )
Awards: 2016 Mention of Honor, XIV Puerto Rico Architecture Biennale, San Juan, Puerto Rico
The Luis Muñoz Marín Park is a green lung in the middle of the city of San Juan. This is part of a recreational and sports complex that includes a stadium, a coliseum and an open-air amphitheater. After years of neglect, a massive restoration was carried out, returning this important public space to the city.
It has a plant nursery, rooms for activities and seminars, walking paths, areas for sports, squares with games for children, gazebos for celebrating parties and birthdays, and areas for the enjoyment of pets. In addition to spaces for recycling materials that will become handicrafts that will be sold in the park.
Among other considerations with the environment, and which in turn will help lower the costs of water and electricity, a rainwater filtration system was built for the bathrooms and the light poles that were installed work with solar energy.
About 1,600 trees and palms live in the park. For every one that dies, seven are sown. In addition, there are 21 species of palms, 40 types of trees and 30 kinds of birds.
Aerial view of the complex.
The Luis Muñoz Marín tree connects with the main fountain.
The children enjoy the interactive fountain.
Entrance canopy from Ave. Piñero.
The elevated walkway " Paseo de la Fronda" provides the experience of a walk among the trees.
Plant nursery pavilion.
Rain water is collected in small water tanks to be reused in the bathrooms.
Luis Muñoz Marín Park at night.
Pond and elevated walkway at night.
Entrance Administrative Building.
Parque Luis Muñoz Rivera
San Juan, Puerto Rico
Construction: 1926-1932 Bennett, Parsons and Frost, Directed by Francisco Valines Cofresí
Restorations: 1970 Orval Sifontes
1990-93 Otto Reyes Casanova
2000-04 Andrés Mignucci , Maribel Ortiz
Status: National Register of Historic Places in San Juan , Puerto Rico
Site: 27.2 acres
Location: Puerta de Tierra, San Juan
Office: Partner at Andrés Mignucci Arquitectos
Responsibilities: Design, Construction Documents, Construction Supervision
Photos: Maribel Ortiz ( except aerial view )
The park required extensive rehabilitation work that included the 'Pabellón de la Paz' and the 'Polvorín' by O'Daly.
New design elements were added to these, such as a linear fountain that reinforced the central axis of the park. A stairway was also built on the transversal walk creating an access to the Third Millennium Park based on an idea originally projected in the design projected by Bennett, Parsons and Frost in 1925.
Master Plan Drawing 2000.
La Ventana al Mar
Condado, San Juan, Puerto Rico
Year: 2004
Location: Ashford Avenue, Condado
Office: Partner at Andrés Mignucci Arquitectos
Responsibilities: Design, Construction Documents, Construction Supervision
Photos: Maribel Ortiz ( except aerial view and people at night)
Awards:
2005 Bronze Medal: Miami + Beach Architectural Biennale, Miami, Florida
2004 Finalist: IV Ibero-American Architectural Biennale, Lima Perú
2004 Mention of Honor: AIA Design Awards, AIA Puerto Rico Chapter, San Juan, Puerto Rico
The construction of the buildings along Ashford Avenue creates an extensive wall that blocks the view of the ocean. The demolition of the obsolete building of the old Convention Center creates a "window" that offers the opportunity of a new public space that opens the view to the sea, democratizing the space physically and visually. In this way, the name of the space "La Ventana al Mar" arises.
Using design strategies that operate at the larger collective scale of the landscape and the city to the intimate scale of the individual user, the project reflects the power of urban design and public space to positively transform deteriorated environments through the creation of habitable places of openness and inclusion.
Aerial view of the project and its context.
A walk on the pre-existing breakwater was created.
Sculpture by Ángel Botello.
The fountain was design in collaboration with WET Design, California.
El Parque de los Niños
San Juan, Puerto Rico
Year: 2000
Location: Parque Central, SanJuan
Office: Partner at Andrés Mignucci Arquitectos
Responsibilities: Design, Construction Documents, Construction Supervision
Photos: Maribel Ortiz and Andrés Mignucci
Awards:
2001 Premio Nacional de Arquitectura: VI Puerto Rico Architecture Biennale, San Juan, Puerto Rico
2001 Honor Award: AIA Design Awards, AIA Puerto Rico Chapter, San Juan, Puerto Rico
2001 URBE Award for Excellence in Architecture: Urbe Design Awards, San Juan, Puerto Rico
2002 Landscape Design Award - Prix du Paysage: Martinique Architecture Biennale, Fort de France, Martinique
2014 Finalist: Rogelio Salmona Latin American Architecture Award, Bogotá, Colombia
The PARQUE DE LOS NIÑOS is part of the Central Park, a municipal sports and recreational facility located in the Santurce sector of the Municipality of San Juan. It occupies an area of 40,540 square meters (4,054 hectares) on the banks of the Caño de Martín Peña.
The lands, flooded and swampy, were part of land reclaimed from the body of water, mangrove landscapes redrawn with fill and garbage. The land assigned to the future park made up the asphalt parking lot that served the sports complex, built on an old landfill on the north coast of Caño, one of the central components of the San Juan Bay Estuary. The park rescues the city's environmental relationship with its natural context, the Caño de Martín Peña in Santurce. Together with the Santurce Park, the two spaces constitute a system that rescues the landscape / city link normally forgotten by putting into play and promoting underused marginal lands in the heart of the city. The design of the park is, therefore, a rescue, repair and environmental rehabilitation operation while developing a space for citizen coexistence and recreation.
The heart of the park is made up of four clearings defined by vegetation that represent the four primordial elements - Water, Air, Fire and Earth. In the center of the park, a fifth clearing - the 5th ESSENCE - represents the symbolic union of the four elements. In turn, each clearing and element is designed to explore the park through direct experience emphasizing the use of the five senses of the human body: visual, aural, touch, smell and taste. The park is divided into the following areas: PAVILIONS, CLARO Nº 1- WATER, CLARO Nº 2- AIR, THE 5TH ESSENCE, CLARO Nº 3- FIRE, CLARO Nº 4- LAND, PLAYGROUND, and the WALKS.
PAVILIONS
Claro Nº 1 - WATER
The clearing of the Water consists of a large reflective pond and interactive fountain. The landscape of this clearing forms a palm grove which includes Royal Palms (Roystonea borinquena), Adonidias (Veitchia merrillii), Paurotis (Acoelorrhaphe wrightii), Butias (Buta capitata), Bottle Palms (Hyophorbe lagenicaulis) and Catechus (Areca catechu).
Claro Nº 2 - AIR
The Air clearing is accessed through a large green wall in the shape of the square root of two - a mathematical sequence of precise geometry present both in abstract mathematics and in nature in the shape of snails like the nautilus. Central element of this clearing is the AVIARY, a large open aviary with the names of our typical birds - warbler, guaraguao, pitirre, and bienteveo, among others. The Aviary introduces the letter as an ornament. Aromatic trees such as Ilán-Ilán (Cananga odorata), Camphor (Cinnamomum camphora), Malagueta (Pimenta racemosa) and Alspice (Pimenta dioica) with their airborne scent, make up the landscape of this clearing.
Claro Nº 3 - FIRE
The clearing of FIRE is symbolically represented by LIGHT and particularly our natural source of light, THE SUN. The SOLAR SYSTEM places us as part of a universe, both vast and immense, and on the other hand, personal and immediate. Our solar system and the planets that comprise it have been built to scale using massive spheres of volcanic stone. The sun is represented by a ring of ten alternating red Flamboyans (Delonix regia) and yellow (Peltophorum inerme). Four TOWERS, oriented to a particular equinox or solstice, directly associated with the Sun and its relationship with the Earth.
Claro Nº 4 - EARTH
The fourth element - EARTH - takes the form of a green maze. In this Meditation Labyrinth, based on medieval models like the one in Chartres Cathedral, there is only one way to the center. As the focal point and goal of the labyrinth we have placed a ceiba (Ceiba pentandra L.), tree of wisdom. The labyrinth has been built of walls of ficus (Ficus benjamina) on the inside and poppy (Rosa sinensis) on the outside.
In PARQUE DE LOS NIÑOS, more than 2,000 new specimens of trees, palms and shrubs have been planted in what constitutes its transformation from the old asphalt and stone parking lot to an urban garden for public use. Its conception, based on direct experience, the use of the senses and the incorporation of traditionally abstract subjects for our children such as mathematics, geometry, astronomy and biology, allow learning both directly, directed and formally, as well. as spontaneous, didactic and informal. The Children's Park represents the invention of a new urban landscape through the measured integration of architecture, landscaping and public art.