“It is a recognition of urban environmental activism. The surprise was that Almost everyone who participates is from England, so it is an achievement and a way to legitimize the struggle,” says Bárbara Rossen, UBA architect and member of the Collective of Architects in Defense of Public Lands. And this organization achieved recognition from the United Kingdom this Wednesday for its work in defense of public lands in the City of Buenos Aires.
The origin of the group dates back to the pandemic, in 2020, when they organized to sign a letter addressed to the City Legislature in protest against the sale or concession of public land for the Young District in Costanera Norte. Today there are more than 500 architects who believe that the Coast should be for everyone and not just for those who pay “9 thousand dollars per square meter.”
“We take our hats off to them. for taking on a project of this scale and scale of challenge. “It shows what is possible when architects come together and work together through lobbying, advocacy and policy and then applying what they know as architects to urban design,” said the Archiboo Awards judgesabout.
Although the main award was received by Studio Bark, an architecture studio linked to regenerative construction, the Collective of Architects in Defense of Public Lands was distinguished as “Highly praised” either Highly Commended.
Last year, after obtaining the signature of 53 thousand neighbors, they took to the Legislature the popular initiative to create a public park in Punta Carrasco and Costa Salguero; although it was not approved. At the same time, they proposed repeal a 2019 law that enabled the City Executive to sell those public lands.
“The defense of the river coast is so fair that it has been raised in the world. Although there was a ruling in the Court and in the Court of Appeal that the lands should not be sold, it is still in the Court of Justice“, he says, in dialogue with Infobae. At the moment they are awaiting the decision of this body on the issue.
And he adds: “We talk about the right to the horizon and beauty, all neighbors have the right to enjoy our most beautiful landscape. The City has a potential that it is not enjoying, in addition to what is happening in the world with climate change, of recovering the river coast as a buffer area. “There are a lot of environmental health benefits.”
The architect explains that the objective of the organization is for the Court of Justice to “recognize what the Constitution says.” Article 8 of the Constitution of the City of Buenos Aires indicates that the spaces that are part of the “riverside contour” of the City are “public and of free access and circulation,” while Chapter IV Environment orders “the protection and increase of public spaces with free and open access, in particular the recovery of coastal areas and guaranteeing their common use.”
With the construction of bars in the protected areas of Costanera Sur and Norte (today suspended through a precautionary measure), he assures that it is a first step for a larger project within the reserve: “It becomes a restaurant, then, If there is one, there may be two. There is always a need for speculation, but on public lands there have to be public projects. “You don’t have to fill public spaces with noise and consumption.”
“This international recognition of the Collective of Architects allows us to mention again that the fate of the coast of Buenos Aires continues at risk until the Superior Court validates the ruling of the court in the first instance and of the Court of Appeals, demands compliance with the Constitution and guarantee the recovery of all of these lands,” he concludes.
The Archiboo platform was born in 2014 as a project of the journalist Amanda Baillieu, honorary member of the Royal Institute of British Architecture. The objective was to offer a space to share knowledge and experience around architecture. Two years later, the Archiboo Awards.
In the 2024 edition, the categories of Podcast, Use of Social Networks, Short Clip, User Experience, Team, Written Content, Brand, Visual Design, Use of Video and Activism Award were awarded, an award created in 2021 that seeks to reward a group or person whose work is “moving the needle” on critical topics.
The organization competed against other finalists, such as News Practice, Waiting to Happena campaign that collected data to improve the safety of three traffic junctions in Glasgow, Scotland; Taking Space, a project by an architect about inequality in cities; Part Wwhich seeks to amplify the contributions made by women and girls in the industry, and the Deaf Architecture Front, a platform that supports deaf people who want to work in architecture.
