With a population of approaching soon 10 million, Lima together with the Seaport of Callao constitutes one of the five largest cities of the Americas. Given that there is currently no official urban development plan and Lima grows rapidly and in an uncontrolled informal manner, the project aims to develop strategies, contributing to the challenge of maintaining and making the megacity livable and sustainable.
Regarding the historical development and contemporary urban condition, Lima is an exemplary case to study formal and informal modes of urbanism and architecture. Lima’s formally planned city is mainly developed on traditional urban design models based on the grid and morphology of city blocks, while the informal city is coined by self-built homes and neighborhoods, the so called Barriadas. Lima evolved as a horizontal city consisting of formally and informally built houses with one to five floors. Due to the ongoing urban growth and economic boom as well as the lack of space to expand, Lima converts itself into a vertical city. The horizontal urban fabric is increasingly replaced by high-rise super blocks that have an inhuman scale, mono-functional use, gated grounds, and a lack of open and green spaces. Our Research addresses the need for high-density development. However, the market-driven urban exploitation is questioned critically by rediscovering the qualities of the historical and informal city.
In the form of field studies and mappings, the project explores selected case study areas, in which formal and informal modes of urbanism can be investigated. The aim is to reconcile the evolutionary, dynamic forces of urban growth with formal, top-down planning. Advancing the pioneering efforts of the PREVI project, our research seeks to create new forms of an open, flexible urban design and architecture that can provide cohesion, while simultaneously allowing for informality and change overtime. The overall goal is to find answers to the challenges of Lima as well as other megacities in our globalized world. In return, our results aim to inspire the urban design and planning practice in Europe.
