We're building the new community centre for Alto Perú

We want to build the new community centre for the informal settlement Alto Perú (Lima, Perú). This new centre will accommodate much needed public facilities and will create a new central meeting point for the community. The building will activate the use of its surroundings and will provide the children with a safe place to learn and play.

Due to the ongoing contact with our partners in Lima we have the opportunity for our project to be carefully integrated into a pre-existing social and urban grid. Moreover, it will strengthen the community through a simultaneous participatory process.

Our goal is to design a building that meets the demands of the community in Alto Perú. In order to achieve this, we attended a workshop in Lima during May of 2018 where we developed the concept for the general plans and uses of the community centre in cooperation with the neighbours: It will be a new place for the community, with a communal kitchen, a child care room and learning facilities. We then studied the existing resources, as well as the local construction methods and this made us start thinking about an innovative and sustainable approach to the architectural design.

The construction phase, which will be carried out with the help of the neighbours of Alto Perú due to their extensive knowledge on self-built constructions, will begin at the end of the summer of 2018.

We are eleven architecture and urban planning students from the University of Stuttgart (Germany) who are working on this project as part of an academic studio for the department for spatial concept and architectural design.

The constant intercultural work and exchange with Peruvian students and our partners, as well as the social component are essential to our project.

We’re working closely with two Lima-based partners: Intuy Lab, an architects collective, and Proyecto Alto Perú, an NGO, both of which have been active in the neighbourhood for some years. Their goal is to improve the living conditions of those living in the community, and they do so by offering sports (surfing, muay thai) and psychoeducational programs for children and young people, as well as by helping to develop urban areas located around the settlement.

In order to be able to build this project we need as much support as we can get. Part of it will be funded by donations received on this site. If you want to help us you might do so either financially or by donating materials and power tools. You can follow our updates on the project on our social media.

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Instagram: @cc_altoperu