Project by: Bin Cheng, Fanjun Xu, Fauwaz Khan, Hancheng Chang, Inten Gumilang, John Mckiernan, Justin Zhu, Kasih (Noni) Maharani Sabandar, Stanley Reynaldi Frits Waita, Suyang Pan, Triana Hernandez Hasselkus, Yue Luo, Zachary Minter
Once known as one of Medellín’s most violent neighborhoods, Comuna 13 is now one of its most visited. Often framed as a story of transformation, from conflict to tourism, this project begins by questioning what that transformation means, and for whom.
Through site visits, interviews, and engagements with residents and stakeholders, the research moves beyond tourism as the dominant lens to understand growth as a more complex and ongoing process. Infrastructure expansion, housing pressures, informal economies, and community networks together shape the neighborhood’s present condition.
The project reads spatial, narrative, and network-related tensions as part of this process of change. It understands informality not as a lack of organization, but as a set of systems that already structure everyday life, and considers how planning can engage with these systems to support futures shaped with the community.
