Through the effort of associations and its own inhabitants, Moravia -one of the aforetime most conflictive zones in the city of Medellín, Colombia- has gone from a slum to a safe area. Urban Lab Medellín-Berlin is working on the cleanse and adequacy of the district to make it a better place. In its first stage, the studio empowered the citizens to adapt a stairs that, although used daily by thousands of people, were still in poor condition.
The starting point is the informal settlement of Moravia, in the center of the Colombian metropolis of Medellín. Moravia rose up in the 1970s, when internally displaced people from the civil war founded a new neighborhood on the city’s landfill. Throughout the decades, Moravia has defended its place in the city against all odds and has undergone an extraordinary transformation process from a stigmatized slum to a safe, colorful and productive living environment with a strong identity. For countless comparable dwellings in the Global South, the development of Moravia gives a hopeful example.
The project started one year ago with two summer schools, one in Moravia and one in Berlin. Both workshops counted on a broad academic and cultural program that integrated local communities and initiatives, as well as actors from the public and private sectors on various levels. The cultural exchange and empirical knowledge transfer generated synergies and mutual learning effects, and proposed innovative solutions for inclusive urban transformations.
