URBAN

CLIMATE
CATALYST
For
Lima, Peru:
Latin Americas
Most Water Stressed
Country
An Architectural Thesis
By Veronica Anderson
 1. FROM SUSTAIN TO ABILITY
The act of building has a larger impact on the environment than anything
else we do.7 Most recently it was estimated that the worlds urban areas are
responsible for 71% of energy-related carbon emissions. By the year 2050, it is
these urban areas in which 85% of population growth will occur. By that time the
worlds urban population will have doubled; thirty eight years from now architects
and urban planners will need a way to adapt to and mitigate the effects of
climate change and housing shortages. Now is the time to address the resilience
of cities and their ability to be sustained through this change.
This thesis will answer the question: How can architecture intervene in a city
TEMPORAL: Relating to in a temporal way to make it more resilient and sustainable? By designingthrough
time, of a certain era;
not permanent; inspired
biomimetics in ways that mimic the way networks and systems are created in
by a particular sites nature architects can help communities to make connections between humans
potential to change. and the environment both physically and metaphorically.
A communitys sustainability is tied to the health of the planet. Sustain can
be defined as 1. To give support or relief to; 2. To supply with sustenance: nourish;
or 3. Keep up, prolong.24 In other words, this condition is concerned with the
ability of a community to be sustained.
Today humans understand the health, delicacy, complexity, and
interconnectedness of natural systems on a significantly more developed level.
Criticizing the common vision of human action without global significance,
sustainable urbanism incorporates the inherently conflictual sectors of ecology
and urbanism. Ecological Urbanism uses a new interdisciplinary framework to
integrate ecological awareness within the existing built environment. The resultant
architecture operates within existing systems and is designed to be conscious of
the ways it supports, transforms, transports, and informs the community.
By using Lima, Peru, the least sustainable city in Latin America, as a testing
ground for a prototypical method of intervening in growing cities, this thesis
will identify a common logic of intervention that is replicable at the district,
metropolitan, and global scale. Based on existing resources like local habits and
infrastructure, the programmatic functions of the architecture will be designed to
respond to the local landscape, both the socio-economic and physical. Using the
lens of ecology, this thesis will develop a methodology for designing architecture
which conserves resources while providing needed spaces and services to
informal settlements. Looking at the district of Comas as an example, the thesis
will demonstrate how architecture can directly improve the sustainability of the
district and inspire replication to improve the city of Lima as a whole.

For Franco
1956 - 2012
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART I

1. Architectural Abstract
2. Theoretical Foundation
3. Design Speculation
4. Terms of Criticism
5. Methods of Inquiry
6. Photo Essay: Touristic/Formal/Informal Lima

PART II

1. Theory to Project Link

2. Concept Model
3. Site as Ecosystem
4. Programming Architecture
5. The Users

PART III

Documents and Drawings:

The Urban Climate Catalyst for Nueva Union

UCC | 1
 2. THEORETICAL FOUNDATION
To demystify the ecological and the sustainable is to reveal the possibility of
architecture.
Preston Scott Cohen & Erika Naginski12

I dont separate human beings from the rest of the ecosystem. It is always a question
of the ecosystem as a whole. Even in urban ecosystems, nature intervenes and can
flourish. In a fissure in the wall, one finds many things growing.
Gilles Clment 1

INTRODUCTION
Gilles Clment completed his studies in horticultural engineering and
landscape design, was awarded the Grand Prix for landscape design by the
French government, and currently teaches at the cole nationale suprieure
du paysage in Versailles. His work in the field of landscape architecture
has taught him that the role of humans in the environment is to understand
how it functions, and to promote its continued functioning. He recognizes
that humans are just one among a great diversity of species and that as a
result of this, man cannot hope to exploit and intervene in the mechanisms
of interaction among the many forms of life without jeopardizing the
ecological functions of this planet.2 Humans have gained a great deal of
understanding since the paradigms under which modern industries operate
were constructed. Clment is only one of many others engaged in the search
for a design agenda which values and reflects this understanding of the
delicacy, complexity, and interconnectedness of natural systems.3
CITIES AS ECOSYSTEMS
This thesis explores the integration of ecological awarenesses and
the process of urban architectural design. Further, the type of architecture
explored here does not simply take account of the fragility of the
ecosystem and the limits on resources but considers such conditions the
essential basis for a new form of creative imagining. Mohsen Mostafavi, the
Dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Design, describes the territory of
ecological urbanism as the imagining of an urbanism other than the status
quo and theorizes that a new sensibility is required which incorporates and
accommodates the inherently conflictual sectors of ecology and urbanism.
Architects that venture into the territory of ecological urbanism should first
have the capacity to criticize the customary vision of human action without
global significance.4 The designs of this movement involve an understanding
of the city as an ecosystem, one made up of networks and systems composed
of not just people and buildings, but plants and landscapes. These architects
are like Grahame Caine, who designed an eco-home in which the occupant
played such a crucial role that the closed-loop system died without his
presence. Once a new operator took control and introduced new inputs, the
mechanisms no longer functioned. 5
A CALL FOR ACTION
As the Director of the Urban Planning & Design Masters Program at
the School of Architecture and the Built Environment at KTH in Stockholm,
Dr. Tigran Haas is concerned and challenged by the rise of a new epoch, a
period of uncertainty, risk, distress, and rapid change at multiple levels. In
response to this same concern, scientists like Cynthia Rosenzweig are calling
for designers to act; city planners need to link climate-change issues to
broader agendas and see in their cities, synergies between climate change
adaptation and mitigation.6 Haas proposes that how we engage the task of
rebuilding and building of our planets cities and their massive and complex
infrastructures will determine the future path of globaVl warming and the
resilience of the earths carrying capacity.7 His forward-looking philosophy
2 | UCC
reads as a call to action, another voice in the search for an architectural
movement which values land conservation and responsible use of materials.
William McDonough cites the 2000 Worlds Fair design guidelines toward
this end; foremost among [the guidelines] was Eliminate the concept of
waste not reduce, minimize, or avoid wastebut eliminate the very
concept, by design. In this new epoch, architects and designers that think
locally and act globally will need to adopt this concept of efficient design.8
A NEW FRAMEWORK FOR DESIGN
Ecologically sustainable urbanism is built upon New Urbanism, an urban
design movement which arose in the USA in the 1980s. This new movement
is a sort of umbrella term and frame for the fields of architecture, urban
planning, and urban design which takes into greater account the issues of
sustainability, resilience, human health, natural resource management, green
building, environmental justice, accessibility, and green economic growth.
Sustainable design is a new and emerging framework for interdisciplinary
urban planning, design, and management of our regions at every scale.9
Ecologically sustainable urbanism explores sustainability and urban design
in a rapidly changing and urbanizing world by focusing on the processes that
shape the form and function of the built environment in its full complexity
the infrastructures, land developments, built landscapes, and facilities that
collectively make up metropolitan regions10 through the lens of ecology.
Before it even leaves the drawing board, architects can use computer
programs and technology that is already available, architects are able to
generate models that predict the air movement, light levels, and heat gain
of a building significantly increasing the designers ability to refine those
aspects of the design which can use the natural environment to reduce overall
energy consumption. New technology is also giving buildings increasingly
sensitive electronic nervous systems, able to register internal and external
conditions and respond to specific needs. New materials exist that can
change from high insulation to low, from opaque to transparent, that can
react organically to the environment and transform themselves in response to
daily and seasonal cycles. 11 Exploiting these technologies and biomimetic
techniques, this thesis will explore ways to integrate users and buildings with
information feedback loops and evolving programmatic functions.
This thesis focuses on making communities more resilient by providing Lima is considered the
architecture and utilities that enables communities to manage their natural second most extensive city
built on a desert in the
resources responsibly. By using green-building techniques alongside world, after Egypts capital,
ecological technologies, an environmentally benign building can be Cairo. Scientists now
agree that climate change
integrated into a community to reduce the stress placed on the ecosystem. is impossible to ignore;
One example of a building successful in this regard is Harmonia 57, a officials expect a 25%
decrease in water supply
project in Sao Paolo that is made from an organic concrete that has pores by 2020 and an increase
from which several plant species grow.12 Architects can do more than just in industrial pollutants.
operate within the building sector; this thesis will demonstrate how lessons
taken from the disciplines of sociology, biology, and economics can contribute
to a building that enhances a communitys ability to be sustained.
CONCLUSION
Since the industrialization of the worlds first cities, industries have
operated according the paradigms developed upon a very rudimentary
understanding of natural systems. Today, humans understand the health,
delicacy, complexity, and interconnectedness of these ecosystems on a
significantly more developed level. Increasing numbers of designers,
architects, and scientists have come to view cities and their citizens as part of
a global ecosystem. Furthermore, cities themselves are progressively being
viewed as ecosystems as architects learn to use the fragility and limits of the
global context in which they operate as the basis for a new methodology of
designing the city. Ecologically sustainable design incorporates the inherently
conflictual sectors of ecology and urbanism, criticizing the common vision
of human action without global significance and asking relevant questions
like, how can the concept of waste be eliminated through design? This
interdisciplinary framework for design uses old and new technologies and UCC | 3
 methods. Ecological Urbanism is not a totally new mode of design practice; it is
an integration of the modern holistic ecological awareness with technologies used
to design the existing urban environment.

Figure 01:The Garden in the

machine: Mumbais Sanjay
Ghandi National Park is a nat-
ural wildlife habitat situated
in the heart of what will soon
be the worlds largest me-
tropolis. Tigers and panthers
have been sighted here along
with hundreds of vultures
whose feeding behaviors are
still relied on to dispose of
deceased bodies from the city.

Figure 02:Street art in Milano,

Italy by an unknown artist
demonstrates public opinion
on the current paradigm of
architecture and planning.

4 | UCC
Figure 03: In Lima, Peru, and
many other developing cities,
water will soon become more
costly and precious than oil.
The countries most threat-
ened by global warming and
a diminishing water supply
are now forced to question
their ability to be sustained.

Figure 04: A circular metabo-

lism where consumption is
reduced by implementing
efficiencies and where re-use
of resources is maximized.

Figure 05: Like a living crea-

ture, the building breathes,
sweats, and modifies itself.
The outside walls are covered
by a vegetal layer that
works like skin. This dense
wall is made of an organic
concrete that has pores from
which several plant species
grow. Rain water is drained,
treated, and reused, enabling
the development of a
complex ecosystem.30
HARMONIA 57
Firm: Triptique
Location: Sao Paulo, Brazil

UCC | 5
 3. DESIGN SPECULATION
The various cartographic procedures of selection, schematization, and synthesis
make the map already a project in the making.

James Corner

INTRODUCTION
This project is situated in Lima, Peru. The low quality of life in the
pueblos jvenes, or young towns, which spring up overnight on the least
desirable desert plots of land surrounding Lima characterizes what makes
up the worlds fastest growing urban landscape. Its status as the most highly
urbanized developing region as well as the one with the most disparity
in income makes Latin America a critical testing bed for architects and
planners. The urban challenges facing Latin America will be repeated
on an even larger scale in Africa and Asia in coming years. Solutions
being tested right now in the region may well be extremely relevant
internationally if they prove successful and replicable.13 Apart from
its status as a model for the future problems of African and Asian cities,
Limas appeal to the thesis author is derived from eleven years studying the
Spanish language and culture. In lieu of the site-specific cultural immersion
necessary for any successful architectural intervention, this existing linguistic
and cultural knowledge enables the author to research primary sources
foreign literature and local interviews as well as provide a foundation for
any cultural assertions or generalizations. This thesis will explore methods
of adapting to the effects of climate change in informal settlements and
mitigating the causes of climate change by providing sustainable utilities
to the vast populations of informal settlers.
COMMON STRATEGIES FOR URBAN ARCHITECTURE
Conserving Resources
The logic of intervention is site based and considers resources in the
physical/environmental sense as well as communal/economic sense. Water
and building materials are as much resources as construction knowledge
and existing communication networks. The solutions tested in Lima will be
prototypical but provisions will have to be made to allow diverse cultural
influences to adjust the architecture. Limas least sustainable aspects are its
water, air quality, land use/buildings, sanitation, and waste management.14
With an eye to the instrumentality of architecture, designers can provide
common strategies for improving the health and resilience of the growing
city. These strategies can be classified under four categories of architectural
function: transform, transport, inform and support. The architecture performs
these functions by integrating itself into the community in one of the following
four systems: digestive, muscular, nervous, and skeletal. By observing the
unique areas of opportunity and receptivity in the chosen community
and using them to inform the architectures function, an ecological
urbanist will always find his architecture relevant and supportive of the
local ecosystem.
Holistic Design
The urban infill will happen as architectural urban climate catalysts are
placed strategically within each chosen landscape, like urban acupuncture.
These catalytic systems will house varying and unlimited programmatic
functions including communal activities that create a social sustainability
within the community and shared utilities which create an economic
sustainability. Insertion points are chosen based on these two aspects of
sustainability combined with the obvious issue of ecological sustainability to
ensure resilience in the face of a growing population and changing climate.
There is an existing standard of communal and collective activity within the
6 | UCC young towns of Lima that the anthropologist Peter Lloyd explores. Because
the installation of services depends heavily on the ability of the squatters
to provide communal labour and a financial contribution the proposed
catalytic building is a viable solution to the lack of utilities available to entire
settlements.16 This united social effort is present in most informal settlements
by their very definition. Ecological urbanism posits that a building must
integrate itself into a community as though it were an organism that
forms part of the ecosystem, this entails a holistic initial analysis and
assessment of the sites context.
Adaptable Networks
Viewing the city as an ecosystem unavoidably calls for the architect to
design living systems that are capable of self-healing. The urban climate
catalysts engender a self-reparation of the urban tissue, which would
be dismantled [or transformed] when no longer needed. 15 By giving the
stakeholders power over the formulation and function of the catalyst, the
architect can empower them to change the structure to suit their unanticipated
needs. Designing with and not just for communities is the job of the future
architect. This thesis recognizes the inability of architects and planners
to anticipate every possible future need and instead, focuses on a way
to design architecture that acts as a utility for the people, a tool for the
community to use in cooperatively improving their own ecosystem.
ACTION PLANS = SUSTAINABILITY
Thinking in terms of grand master plans and city-branding architecture
(as many of the global cities do) instead of plans of action (especially on the
local level) will hardly take us toward the desired goal of sustainability.17
Responding to Mohsen Mostafavis call to action, the thesis will explore the
development of an action plan for ecologically sustainable urbanism. This
plan will take into account the holistic context of the design as well as the
way cities can represent microcosms of the global environmental change. The
action plan proposed for Lima will address the citys well below average
performance in land use and buildings, and below average performance in
waste, water, sanitation, and air quality as diagnosed by the Latin American
Green Cities Index. 18 The action plan proposed here for Lima will
provide an example of a prototypical process for architects and planners
to create more sustainable cities.
ECOLOGICALLY SUSTAINABLE DESIGN
By augmenting the citys constituent infrastructures and utilities the thesis
is seen as a way to intervene within the ecosystem of the city in an operative
and temporal way that makes the city more flexible and resilient to external
forces. The proposed catalysts are reversible, and provisory; they are Limas population will
constantly evolving in response to the changing context of the city. In this increase from 8 to 16 million
thesis, the process of designing the proposed architectural intervention will by the year 2050. By that
time the available water
proceed based on four tenets of ecologically sustainable urbanism identified resources are expected to
by Tigran Haas as critical core concepts: have decreased by 25%.
1. Identity (Individuality)
2. Structure (Physical Pattern)
3. Meaning (Practical-Emotional Impact)
4. Setting (Relation to Environment) 19
First, in order to understand the identity of the site, this thesis has begun
by answering the question, Why Lima? While the thesis is interested in Limas
common conditions that make the city identify with other global metropolises,
it is also imperative to understand the aspects of the site which make it
unique and to identify what contributes to its individuality. In order to gain
clarity and specificity the author has chosen to focus on the identity of the
distict of Comas, now the most populous of Limas forty three districts.
Second, the structure of Comas ecosystem must be understood through
the process of mapping and analysis documenting the physical patterns of
the site. The various means of public transportation, road networks, utility UCC | 7
 grids, topographic events and agricultural land are of particular interest at
this stage of sustainable urban design.
Third in the process of design is the meaning of the project in relation
to the sociocultural fabric of the ecosystem. To create a resilient, united
ecosystem the architect must define the meaning of this architectural
intervention to the community and design the ways it augments lifestyles
and traditions. Taking note of potential areas of intervention in the district
of Comas, the thesis zooms down to street level, identifying neighborhoods
where a community could grow an urban climate catalyst that has a positive
impact on the ecosystem paying equal attention to social and physical
parameters
Fourth on the list of ecologically sustainable urbanism goals is an
understanding of the setting and its relation to the environment. Though
it is mentioned fourth, the architect must consider his designs place in the
ecosystem at every stage of design. The ultimate goal of ecologically
sustainable urbanism is to create architecture whose relationship to
the environment is always be supportive and reciprocal, promoting its
continued functioning.
DESIGNING THROUGH THE LENS OF ECOLOGY
Biomimicry is the study of how to implement and mimic ecological
principles in design. Natures basic principles of design can act at a multiplicity
of scales and hence, have extraordinary architectural implications. Bio-
inspired buildings are typically likely to have better sustainability outcomes
if they mimic the process strategies (how they work) and/or functions (what
they do) of ecosystems. 21 Janine Benyus, the self-described biologist at
the design table and cofounder of the Biomimicry Institute has identified four
of natures guidelines for construction that summarize the process strategies
and functions of natural ecosystems:
1. Life friendly manufacturing processes
2. An ordered hierarchy of structures
3. Self-assembly
4. Templating with proteins 22
First, life cant put its factory on the edge of town; it has to live where
it works.23 Life friendly practices of urban design privelage natural
processes like constructed wetlands for waste water treatment. Zari cites
The Happy Shrimp Farm in the Netherlands as a good example of a system
which mimic[s] the aspect of ecosystems where waste becomes a resource
for another component of the system, or where energy is shared ensuring
the system itself becomes cyclic and eliminates duplication of effort. In this
system, a nearby coal-fired power plant donates its waste coolant water to
support the shrimp farms algae growth. 24 This is an invitation to designers
to eliminate the concept of waste at every level of design.
A second design guideline is based on natures preference for ordered
hierarchies. This process is directly correlated to how a community organizes
its internal processes. A decentralized system is more resilient to change and
failure by having an ordered hierarchy of elements. In the proposed urban
climate catalyst, instead of one central constructed wetland to process waste
water, three separate ones take care of smaller portions of the work.
Third, by making the systems and infrastructures responsible for the
maintenance of the city accessible to the citizens and using architecture to
highlight users personal roles within those systems, people and buildings can
become one living machine capable of self-assembly. Ecological urbanism
has the ability to unite citizens, cities, and the environment in a network of
physical and metaphorical connections.In the future city that we imagine,
technology is not simply used to replace human action but is harnessed to
provide clarity about the operation of existing systems. Through processing
this information and making it publically accessible in real-time, the true
8 | UCC nature of a hidden infrastructure such as waste removal can be highlighted,
and a feedback loop of information created that highlights inefficiencies
in systems while also promoting awareness of the results of our actions.26
When inefficiencies in the ecosystem are highlighted and architecture
provides tools to remedy those inefficiencies, citizens are inclined to become
a part of the self-assembly of more ecologically sustainable cities, ensuring
their continued sustenance.
A fourth principle perfected in nature is the ability to customize
materials through the use of templates. Nature makes what she wants when
and where she wants it through a process that produces no waste. This is
made possible by genes; these microscopic initial prototypes for assembling
proteins are modified and self-assembled, acting as templates that enable
geometric precision when combined and repeated. 27 There is a lack of
current discussion on how to make buildings more adaptable in general
through techniques such as design for deconstruction, materials recycling and
reuse, and lightly treading foundations. Experimentation with this concept
of eliminating waste through templating should occur through physical and
virtual modeling processes in the later phases of architectural design.
CONCLUSION
This thesis is concerned with the development of common strategies for
designing sustainable, resilient cities in the face of rapid population growth
and the impending challenges of climate change. By using the city of Lima as
a testing ground for a prototypical method of retrofitting cities, this project
will identify a common logic of urban architecture based on the theories of
ecologically sustainable design. The action plans for sustainable design will
result in an urban climate catalyst designed through the lens of ecology that
integrates itself with its users and context to create a living system capable
of self-healing and assembly. Architectural form will be explored by
experimenting with biomimetic guidelines like self-assembly and templating.
Programmatic content of the architectural interventions will be determined Proposed programs for the
by the areas in which Limas sustainable performance is below average urban climate catalyst to
land use, buildings, waste, water, sanitation, air quality and the architecture create emergent change.
will be responsive to the specific conditions of the local landscape in which
the intervention is located.
The following thesis proposal describes aa urban climate catalyst for
the informal settlement of Nueva Union in Collique, Comas which provides
users with facilities and communal spaces centered around three buildings
and constructed wetlands which filter water used on site from the proesses
of showering, doing laundry, and washing dishes. A community center in the
middle of the building site ensures the utility of the architectural intervention
into the future and provides spaces for social and economic emergence. The
entire intervention has been designed to be built by the users themselves in
a cooperative way which utilizes existing networks of organization in the
community as a resource to create a sense of ownership.

UCC | 9
 4. TERMS OF CRITICISM
+ Q1: How can architecture mitigate the causes of climate
change and contribute to a communitys ability to be sustained?
+ Q2: What do the principles of New Urbanism with healthy, green,
walkable spaces look like when viewed through the lens of ecology?
+ Q3: How can urban densification happen through emergence
as a result of flexible, operative, and adaptable buildings?
+ Q4: How can architects eliminate the concept of waste through
design by anticipating change and inspiring future acts of emergence.
+ Q5: How can architectural technologies and techniques highlight
inefficiencies and promote awareness of how a city operates?
+ Q6: How can architecture intervene in a city to make it more
resilient to forces of change like population growth and a warming climate?

5. METHODS OF INQUIRY
+ MoI1: Analyze existing sustainability of Lima through Latin
American Green Cities Index and the UNs World Urbanization Report
+ MoI2: Identify similarities and problems that could have
prototypical solutions for Lima and other growing cities
+ MoI3: Visit Lima to document the existing condition and
experience of the communities and networks (Comas/Lima/Andes)
+ MoI4: After visit, identify resources for design by analyzing
geophysical and climactic maps, economic trends, community groups,
building techniques, common materials, interviews, and social patterns
+ MoI5: Identify ecological processes and techniques that are simple
and can be implemented within the existing means of the community
+ MoI6: Find ways to make architecture self-sustaining by creating a
living system that engages stakeholders and is capable of self-modification
Ex/ Harmonia 57, Triptyque
+ MoI7: Find ways to design architecture and communal spaces
that are open ended and follow the theory of emergence
Ex/ Urban Voids Phila Entry, Ecosistema Urbano

10 | UCC
Left Column: Images from
Macchu Pichu, one of the
seven wonders of the world
dating back to 15th century
Inca civilization in Peru.
Right Column: Images
from central Lims touristic
attractions: Parque del
Amor, Larcomar, Parque
JFK, El Catedral, Plaza de
Armas, La Costa Verde.

UCC | 11
 The Urban Climate
Catalyst: A Prototype
An Award-Winning Thesis Proposal
For Nueva Union, Lima, Peru
By Veronica Anderson

12 | UCC
Above: Informal life in Lima,
Perus pueblos jovenes.

Below: Panorama of
Nueva Union and Collique
with proposed and potential
urban climate catalysts.

UCC | 13
 PART II: THESIS PROPOSAL
1. THEORY TO PROJECT LINK

This thesis will focus on designing a new way for architects to create
buildings that are responsible for improving the longevity, resilience,
sustainability, efficiency, and cultural success of cities around the world.
The project will focus on Lima, Peru as an example of a growing modern
metropolis and how an urban climate catalyst can ameliorate the informal
urban condition and its abundant inefficiencies. While Lima has been
designated one of the most unsustainable Latin American cities, its housing
shortage, infrequent green space, and lack of eco-friendly architecture
are not isolated issues. The climate catalyst developed for Limas district of
Comasis an example of two architectural solutions that have the potential
for adaptation and reproduction elsewhere in the world: the living machine
and sea water greenhouse. These technologies have been well developed as
isolated tools but this prototypical method of integrating living systems within
architecture will become increasingly valuable as global climate change and
population growth require buildings to be more flexible and adaptable.
The existing infrastructures provided by the city along with the
communitys existing socioeconomic networks will be utilized and augmented
to varying degrees depending on the site of the climate catalyst. The
community of Comas will become more resilient to changing forces through
the creation of a closed-loop system within the building that uses renewable
resources and organic waste for its inputs and creates potable water and
other usable outputs. By locating the catalyst in an underserved area of
Comas which has the potential for future population growth, the catalyst
operates in a way that supports the ecosystem, relieving some of the human-
induced pressure on it that can ultimately be detrimental to the communitys
health.
Using biomimetic processes and techniques to integrate the people
and buildings of a community, ecological urbanists bringbuilt structures
and their users together to make an ecosystem that is more resilient and
easily sustained.The specific programmatic functions the architecture
performs, water purification and growing crops, have been chosen based
on an understanding of Comas existing network of resources and forces.
The catalyst responds to the shortage of accessible water in the district by
providing a way for residents to locally recycle their waste water.
By exploiting existing grassroots systems within the community including
waste disposal and water distribution, the climate catalyst will give the
citizens of Comas a building which acts as a long-term tool for adapting to
the effects of climate change and mitigating their causes.

14 | UCC
2. CONCEPT MODEL
The concept model pictured below demonstrates the
priority of several theoretical concepts:
- The importance of the physical/cultural landscape as a
generator of physical form
- The importance of the physical/cultural conditions as a generator
of program
- Architecture as a framework for satisfying changing
programmatic needs
- Architectural intervention acting as a part of a larger urban
ecosystem

These concepts have become apparent through:

- Reconfigurable parts/ mobile elements
- Identification of possible future configurations

Above: Plan of proto-

typical urban climate
catalyst for the district of
Comas in Lima, Peru.

Below: Section of a proposed

urban climate catalyst
for Comas that has mixed
uses centered around a
living machine connected to a
nearby pueblo joven recycling
water used for agriculture.

UCC | 15
 3. SITE [as ecosystem]
The resources devoured by a city may be measured in terms of its ecological
footprint an area, scattered throughout the world and vastly greater than the
physical boundary of the city itself, on which a city depends. These footprints supply
the cities resources and provide sites for the disposal of their waste and pollution.
- Richard Rogers 1

Buildings must always be built on those parts of the land which are in the worst
condition, not the best.

- Christopher Alexander 2

A CITY IS NOT A TREE

The city is organic because it is in a constant state of flux but it is not
necessarily an organism. Unlike a tree, and despite political bounds, the city
is not corporate, finite, or a self-contained whole. There is no equilibrium in
the city; there is no birth-to-maturity linear growth, no ultimate predictable
and typical characteristic form the city must achieve. These concepts make
sense together for an organism, but not a city. We can agree, then, with
Christopher Alexander that a city is not a tree. Rather, a city may be likened
to a forest, or, indeed, an ecosystem. 3
WHY LATIN AMERICA?
Population Growth
Approximately thirty two percent of the urban population in Latin
America lives in illegal or semi-legal housing settlements often called
amongst other things slums, shantytowns, barriadas, and pueblos jvenes.4
Currently, there are 1.5 These are some of the fastest growing communities on earth yet they are
million people in Lima among the most unprepared. Of the areas included in the developing
without water service. world, the countries comprising Latin America are collectively nearest
The new growth which
will double the city to 16 the eighty percent urbanization rate of Europe today. If architects and
million by 2050 is projected urban planners can begin to solve the issues posed by climate change and
to occur in informal settle-
ments, outside the service population growth, the worlds future metropolises stand a much greater
of water and sewage chance of survival.
infrastructure.
WHY PERU?
Climate Change
Peru takes third place on the list of countries most likely to experience
adverse effects as a result of climate change; this is a result of many factors
but most simply comes down the location of seventy percent of Perus growing
population within reach of just two percent of the countrys water resources.
Epitomizing this predicament, a local official was quoted asking, How on
earth can we develop Peru in a sustainable way over the coming years
without a reliable supply of water? 5 Problems with water supplies faced
here, and their solutions, will inform virtually all countries as the effects of
climate change engender paradigm shifts in cities around the world.
Housing Crisis
The informal urban landscape of Lima is unique for three reasons,
the same reasons which have made a housing crisis. First, a majority of its
inner city slum-dwellers are impoverished migrants from the rural villages
of the Andes Mountains with little economic means; second, the government
has actually maintained a policy of land management which allows new
illegal informal settlements to gain legitimacy over time and involves little
regulation; and third, free or cheap land located in the large expanses of
desert and Andean foothills just outside the capitols city center has given rise
to the unimpeded growth of informal settlements. 6
16 | UCC
 WHY LIMA?
Landscape
Due to the presence of important swathes of desert between rivers
to the North and South, land has been cheap, and has constituted a sort of
land bank, used by the state since the 1960s, for housing for low-income
families. This phenomenon, as well as the informal urbanization process,
which reached its apogee from the 1960s, explains the low density of the
city, and its large extension. 9 These desert plots are even cheaper because Social stratification is an
of their location in the steep foothills of the Andes Mountains which separate economic response to the
availability of land in Perus
the arid coast from the tropical Amazonian Rainforest. Because of their capital city. Low, flat land
inaccessibility and poor quality, these high slopes are often the only place is more expensive and less
available than the steep,
low class residents of the city can afford to live. The practice of building unstable cliffs of the nearby
unstable dwellings which are at high risk of natural disasters has been noted Andes Mountains. Because
the impoverished lower
in other developing countries such as Brazil and India. On average, Lima class cannot afford to turn
receives just nine millimeters (0.6 inches) of rain per year and for this reason, down free land near their
families and friends, they are
the rains caused by El Nio every few years often have adverse effects for relegated to the self-built
infrastructure and housing. 8 The inaccessibility of these informal settlements terraces and shanties in the
pueblos jvenes outside
has contributed to their disconnection from the citys public utilities such as public infrastructure for water,
water, sanitation, and electricity and even isolates them from the social electricity, and sanitation.
This is Limas fastest
benefits of flat, open public spaces. growing urban landscape.
Pueblos Jvenes
Limas population growth since the 1960s has been concentrated in
the informal low-income settlements called pueblos jvenes where people
first live, then construct, then install services. These shantytowns housed ten
percent of Limas population in 1955, twenty five percent in 1970, and
probably house thirty five percent of the population today. 10
For the poor there exist the houses vacated by the middle classes as
they move from the inner-city areas to the newer suburbs, and the housing
that they can provide for themselves as squatters. For the new immigrants
to Lima, finding a job is more important than securing their own home and
amenities. Because of high rents, inner-city areas are often inaccessible to
these newcomers. Similar accommodation can be found by building a small
hut in one of the informal settlements on the outskirts of the city; usually
immigrants choose to build their homes in the same pueblos jvenes as their
friends and family. Houses are built by the familys labor, occasionally with
the assistance of a relative possessing building expertise. They progress
spasmodically with the gradual accumulation of savings and opportunities to
use low-cost materials. Because of the clandestine nature of these dwellings,
residents are often hesitant to build with heavy, permanent materials,
preferring the use of esteras (traditional woven mats) for roofs, floors, and
walls, sometimes with adobe or a wood frame filled with mud and straw
quincha. 11 These structures deteriorate rapidly and are often dangerously
unstable. 12 Because these plots of land are technically illegally occupied,
dwellings are built first to stake a claim to the land and after construction,
utilities to serve them are installed. As a result, the pueblos jvenes often
desperately lack basic connections to public utilities such as water, sewage,
and electricity.
Unsatisfied Basic Needs
In the next fifty years, ninety five percent of the global population Occasional cisterns built by
growth will occur in cities of the developing world. These are often the non-government institutions
can transport ground water
ones least equipped to handle rapid population growth and are often to as many as one hundred
underserved by basic public utilities which leads to unsatisfied basic needs. shanties. It is housed in
outdoor barrels and carried in
Today, thirty three percent of the Perus urban poverty can be found in Lima. for use in buckets. Currently
12 In 2007 Limas population was 8.4 million. By 2025 it is expected to there is no way for residents
to recycle greywater.
reach 11.5 million making it the thirty-second largest urban agglomeration
in the world. 7
A case study found that lower income groups in Lima, Peru [had] to
spend three times the amount per month on purchasing water from water
vendors than that paid by those with piped house connections If daily
expenditures made to a water carrier were invested instead in a proper UCC | 17
 piped supply, far more economical and better water services could be
provided. 13 In the southern pueblo joven, Villa El Salvador, about sixty
percent of the properties have received titles to the illegally occupied land
from the government; however, the percentage of plots with potable water is
less than five percent. There are no holistic plans on the part of the municipal
authorities or the water and sewage bodies, nor by any other public authority
to bring water to this settlement. Because practically one hundred percent
of the district is made up of shantytowns, census data presented in Table 01
can provide a fairly accurate depiction of the quality of life in Limas other
pueblos jvenes.14
Questionable Sustain-ability
The deficit between water supply and demand is aggravated by high
rates of urban expansion and melting glaciers as a result of climate change.
Dwindling uphill reservoirs have caused reductions in river flow. From 1992
to 2004 the flow in the Chilln River has decreased by 19.5%, in the Rmac
River by 13.3% and in the Lurn River by 33%.15The inaccessibility of water
in Lima is one of the factors that have contributed to the citys stance as the
Limas population is
least sustainable city in Latin America and its strategic position as a testing
growing and its water ground for applying the goals of sustainable urbanism.
supply is shrinking.
The Latin American Green Cities Index has rated Limas land use/
building practices well below average in terms of sustainability. The authors
of the index point to a below average population density and lack of green
spaces two square meters per person versus the WHO recommended eight
as direct causes of this low sustainability ranking. 16 Combined with a
lach of awareness about sustainable building techniques, this suggests that
a series of architectural interventions in the city which increases the density,
available green space, and awareness of energy efficient building practices
might make Lima more easily sustained and suggests the need for architects
as agents of sustainable development.
Lima lacks sustainability in other ways -- water, waste, sanitation,
and air quality -- which can also be ameliorated based on architectural
interventions. The urban climate catalyst in the district of Comas will focus
on improving the water and sanitation systems accessible to a portion of
the district but will also increase the communitys air quality and ability to
recycle waste as a side effect.
WHY COMAS?
Horizon of Sustainability
A value map was created to depict the sustainability of Comas by
measuring different aspects of the districts society, economy, and ecology
and representing them together. In this tool created by Chris Butters,
values are scaled so that the outer rim, corresponding to a horizon of full
sustainability, is clearly shown to be far off. A larger star (area covered
in grey) represents the best results. By combining quantitative aspects like
resources and emissions with qualitative ones such as equity and happiness,
this holistic tool compels architects to avoid specialist thinking and focuses on
more than environmental issues which are merely one part of sustainability.17
The proposed system of climate catalysts intervenes in the district of
Comas to make a more successful ecosystem. For example, the urban climate
catalyst proposed in this thesis will address and improve the sustainability of
land use, health, economic services, water cycles, biodiversity, and aesthetics.
This design intent does not entail a complete disregard for the other
unsustainable values in Comas, there are secondary benefits, too. Improving
the communitys water cycles with the use of constructed wetlands to purify
waste water will in turn ameliorate the health conditions, living costs, and
accessibility by decentralizing water treatment. This could in turn spark the
improvement of economic processes and functionality, provide social security
into the distant future, and engender better land use practices by inspiring

18 | UCC
more climate catalysts. This effect is called emergence.
Landscape
The district of Comas shares a border with the East bank of the Chilln
River. These waters are produced from the melting of glaciers in the Andes
Mountains and flow past Comas into the Pacific Ocean near Limas port of
Callao. Due to absent waste and sanitation services as well as a lack of
environmental education, there is a high level of contamination by solid and
human wastes. Despite the fact that the same farmers and citizens who dump
waste into the river acknowledge its poor quality, water from the Chilln
River irrigates local crops and is used to feed the goats, cattle, and sheep
bred for slaughter and sale in the district. Because the districts economic
sector relies heavily on agriculture and livestock farming, it is worrying to see Diagram of the character
of the environment. Urban
a dwindling water supply being polluted so quickly. A method of recycling form in the outskirts of
waste water is badly needed.18 Lima is defined by the Andes
Mountains. Flat roads host
Land Use commercial construction while
steep, often unpaved roads
bring residents up into their
In Comas, a majority of the population lives in pueblos jvenes. 20 neighborhoods and homes.
Here, a standard family will use their dwelling not just as a home, but also as
headquarters for any number of self-managed economic operations. These
dwelling/workshops occupy seventy three percent of the land in Comas.
Other formal commercial buildings occupy just 2.7 percent of the land and
industrial, 2.1 percent. Agricultural practices, which are located mostly in
Zone 14, account for 11.4 percent of the land use. 21
Endangered Ecosystem
By modifying unsustainable habits and making systems in Comas more
efficient, the proposed urban climate catalyst will help mitigate the causes of
climate change which currently endanger the ecosystem by making its unmet
needs more urgent. Based on critical points of solid waste accumulation,
appropriately placed climate catalysts will equip the local residents with the
tools necessary i.e. constructed wetlands to treat their own sewage and
waste water naturally. By using waste as food there is a reduced need for
inputs in the system and the ecosystem of Comas is more easily sustained.22
Limas unsustainable air quality greatly affects Comas: this is the district
where a large percentage of Limas particulate matter settles. Thanks to
factors of the landscape and cartography, wind displaces the settleable
solids here where an average volume of nine times the acceptable value for
human activities has been recorded. Green spaces to remove carbon dioxide
from the air could ameliorate this condition. 23
WHY COLLIQUE?
In December of 2012 the author of this thesis traveled to Lima, Peru
for the chance to gather in situ data and research. By inventing an NGO
called Water for the Future, she was able to secure a meeting with the head
of the Public Works Department for the municipality of Comas. During this
time, when asked which areas in the district could benefit most from a way to
make water more affordable, the officials readily identified Collique as the
fastest growing and poorest of the twelve zones in Comas. As the section of
the district with the newest and fastest growing pueblos jovenes, there are
few statistics supporting its impoverished condition; photographic evidence
must suffice. Families either carry water to their homes on foot from a distant
standpipe or pay three times the cost of a public connection for water to be
delivered to a plastic barrel outside their home. Instead of bathrooms they
utilize NGO-built latrines.

UCC | 19
 4. PROGRAM[ming architecture]
The first and most obvious thing about cities is that they are like organisms, sucking in
resources and emitting wastes. The larger and more complex they become, the greater
their dependence on surrounding areas, and the greater their vulnerability to change
around them.
Sir Crispin Tickell 24

Evolutionary history reminds us that the path to sustainability in the long term must
be built on viability in the short term. So without taking our eye off the longer-term
goals, we need to work with things that are viable now. What is deemed sustainable
today may not turn out to be sustainable tomorrow and vice versa.
Stephen Marshall 25

INTRODUCTION
When designing in the informal city, designers have to insert themselves
between bottom-up and top-down approaches, developing processes that
can be scaled up or scaled down as necessary to fit into the particular
governmental situation. 26 The mode of operation is local. The ecological
urbanist uses processes that exploit a sites differences and constraints,
turning them into generative opportunities for the specification of new
infrastructures.27 The flow chart pictured on the following page describes
the process of designing urban climate catalysts that respond to climate
change and housing crises. It is a process that results in a building which
belongs to its milieu and that grows unique traits and qualities in response to
the buildings locality. The overarching goal of the urban climate catalysts
is to form a network that increases the sustainability of the given city. In
Lima, the water, waste, sanitation, air quality, and land use systems will all
be ameliorated with the integration of multiple catalysts in each of Limas
forty three districts. While each catalyst will be designed to focus on a
specific system, engaging one problem will automatically involve triggering
responses at multiple levels. In other words, [the] solution could [catalyze
the incorporation of] other variables, negotiate their instability, grow in
complexity and diversity and finally become more robust. 28
RESILIENCY IS SUSTAINABLE
Ecosystems are typically resilient and many are able to move through
infrequent abrupt changes while still supporting organisms to survive.
29 The climate catalyst programmed for Zone 4 of the district of Comas
makes Lima more sustainable because it supports organisms and makes their
survival more likely with the addition of living systems that remove some of
the pressure currently placed on existing ecosystem services. The proposed
catalyst houses a living machine that purifies the communitys waste water
for agricultural or consumptive purposes, relieving some of the strain on the
sewage system currently in place. The same proposed system also includes
a sea water greenhouse whose inputs are sea water and solar energy and
outputs are fresh water, zero carbon emissions electricity, compost, crops,
and seedlings. These programmatic functions relieve some of the pressures
placed on the digestive system of the community, thereby making the
ecosystem of Comas more resilient to change.
MITIGATE THE CAUSES OF CLIMATE CHANGE
The urban climate catalyst will provide citizens of the district of Comas
the tools to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions from the built environment.
This will increase the districts ability to be sustained by eliminating waste
in the local ecosystem. Designing the urban climate catalyst for Lima, Peru
will give a worst-case-scenario response to the ecological urbanists call
for buildings that mitigate the causes of climate change. Approaches to
mitigation of climate changes fall into three categories:

20 | UCC
 Mimicking the Energy Efficiency of Ecosystems
By using waste or renewable resources as inputs and designing
architecture that is completely energy efficient, less fossil fuel is burnt and
therefore less GHGs are released into the atmosphere. One such example
is the Council House 2 in Melbourne whose architects were able to achieve
eighty five percent less energy usage and seventy percent less water usage
by mimicking the temperature control techniques of termite mounds in
southern Africa.
Devising New Ways to Produce Energy:
The most common strategy for designers to employ for reducing human
dependence on fossil fuels is the integration of building technologies which
prevent additional GHGs from being emitted by sustainably producing
energy. Comas climate catalyst will be designed to run off of kinetic energy
directly from its users via the Play Pump designed by the SK52 Design Studio.
Sequestering and Storing Carbon:
This approach prevents GHGs emitted from human activities from
reaching the atmosphere and causing additional climate change. Plants
utilize carbon dioxide during the photosynthesis process, converting it into
the products needed for plant growth and development such as cellulose.
For plants, carbon dioxide is a necessary resource in the correct quantities,
rather than a pollutant. 30 The plants of the constructed wetlands that
purify waste water on-site will make use of this approach.
ADAPT TO THE EFFECTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE
As part of the process of making Lima more resilient against the effects
of climate change, the catalyst provides residents of the district of Comas with
the tools to adapt to the varying effects of climate change.Understanding
local built environments as whole systems in terms of their strengths and
weaknesses and utilizing these to create greater resilience is a more effective
way of planning for unpredictable future climatic changes.
Process Strategies
Mimicking the strategies that ecosystems use to make themselves resilient
can help designers create regenerative built environments. In the context of
climate change, this is useful because of the uncertain nature of scientific
predictions. Architects should renewable energy sources, optimization of the
whole system rather than single parts, a responsiveness and dependence
on local conditions, diversity in types of organisms and relationships,
decentralized organization, interdependence of organisms, benign
functioning, complex information feedback loops, and a capacity for self-
healing or self-correction. Table 02 lists these ecosystem process strategies
with their related design techniques and climate change implications.
Typically, biomimetic systems imitate ecosystems where waste becomes
a resource for another component of the system, or energy is shared ensuring
the system itself becomes a closed loop, eliminating duplication of effort.
One architectural case study is the Happy Shrimp Farm in the Netherlands
which uses waste from the next door coal-fired power station to feed the
shrimps.32 Comas off-grid climate catalyst will be designed to utilize all
of these strategies. By focusing on the efficiency of its parts and optimizing
the whole, the living system will respond to local conditions by improving the
ecosystems stability and capacity for self-healing with complex feedback
loops and benign functioning. Waste water in the community will become
a resource for the constructed wetland and daily paths of circulation will
become resources for emergent social and economic endeavors.
Ecosystem Services
In order for architecture to increase the resilience of the city, the climate
catalyst will be programmed to support the continued functioning of the
ecosystem by mimicking or providing services the overstressed ecosystem is
currently too pressured to adequately provide. The built environment already
UCC | 21

The city of Lima has
expanded to the point that
the only land left for future
urbanization is the rocky,
trecherously steep foothills
of the Andes Mountains. The
urban fabric here is linear
and preventative of street
life. Communal spaces must
be planned strategically.
22 | UCC
provides some of the same functions as natural ecosystems, particularly life-
fulfilling services such as artistic inspiration, recreation, and tourism and is
thus not a primary focus during the programming of the architecture as
an instrument. Other services that humans receive from ecosystems can be
divided into provisioning services such as food and medicines, regulation
services such as pollination and climate regulation, and supporting services
such as soil formation and fixation of solar energy. These services are each
controlled by one of four systems in which a building must integrate itself:
the digestive, muscular, circulatory, and skeletal system.33 In Comas, the
programs of the proposed climate catalyst situate it in the digestive system
of the community; the living system will be responsible for transforming
waste within the ecosystem.
LIVING SYSTEMS CATALYZE SELF-CORRECTION
Richard Rogers, the 2007 Pritzker Prize Laureate and author of
Cities for a Small Planet, advocates the importance of self-correction. A
building that is a financial market today may need to become an office in
five years and a university in ten. So buildings that are easy to modify will
have a longer useful life and represent a more efficient use of resources.
Though this is not a revolutionary truth, architects often fail to reflect the
programmatic temporality of their designs through their form. Rogers points
out how designing flexibility of use into our buildings inevitably moves
architecture away from fixed and perfect forms, into a realm of which most
architects are traditionally inclined to disapprove. Examples of architecture
that expose their mechanical systems, like Paris Pompidou Center and Sao
Paolos Harmonia 57, formally reflect the expectation and anticipation of
change.34
Ultimately, despite the integration of various biomimetic technologies,
buildings are still inanimate objects and their ability to self-correct in the exact
manner of a living organism is limited. By creating a holistic living system out
of the building and its users, the architect can design a new organism-like
entity called a living system that is composed of animate and inanimate
components and therefore capable of changing itself. The proposed climate
catalyst pre-envisions urban components and relationships but the overall
outcome relies on individual actors in the community.35 There is a need for
solutions able to grow symbiotic relationships between the city of Lima and
its artificial and natural structures. From the seeds of the proposed buildings
new large-scale networks of climate catalysts could emerge and the self-
repairing mechanisms of the biosphere could be augmented to promote a
sustainable equilibrium.36
The urban climate catalysts create stimulation within the existing
ecosystem. Flexible spaces provided by the architect give rise to civic
initiative and encourage an appropriation of the city. The emergence takes
place within the site of the new catalyst or somewhere else, by encouraging
the construction of another discrete catalyst based on the first ones success.
Realized projects contain an explosive power. They provoke the question,
Why not here too? The knowledge something can be implemented
mobilizes sleeping giants.37
MIXED USES
An important aspect of temporary use is that institutionalizing it usually
hurts more than it helps. For these reasons, architecture will be employed that
allows for easy reconfiguration by the users and the proposed catalyst will
leave room for the addition of unanticipated mixed uses.38
Figure 06: Black squares
represent formal settlement
while orange is existing
informal housing and light
orange is projected informal
housing. Latin America,
India, then Africa will be
consumed by the informal
landscape of the furure.

Figure 07: The dark grey

slices of the value map
are values which have
been addressed already.
The light grey shows the
proposed catalysts effect on
the values of Comas. Blue
boxes indicate well-addressed
values that are resources
for the new catalyst.

Figure 08: An area of

Comas called Collique has
been identified as a useful
site for an urban climate
catalyst. A rapidly growing
population and many com-
munities underserved by
public utilites are evidence
to support this hypothesis.

UCC | 23
 5. THE USERS
This thesis attempts to design with, not just for, the proposed buildings
users: the residents of Limas pueblos jvenes. Involving communities in
the process of creating healthy, cost-effective, sustainable settlements that
respond to local needs and cultures will generate real long-term solutions.
Genuine participation is the key to producing urban solutions that can
transform lives.39 Because the goal is a high level of integration between
people and building, it is imperative that the architect have a nuanced
understanding of the users before designing an urban climate catalyst.
WHO ARE THEY?
A type of natural selection occurred in the 1960s and 70s: the people
with the most initiative were the ones who chose to start new settlements
from nothing. The new generations, descendent of the initial immigrants,
have different behavioral patterns. Often they feel that their priority is
not to develop the settlement nor to construct a house, but to find a means
to survive.40 The large majority of the population are either unemployed
or underemployed (ten and seventy seven percent, respectively) and
consequently the percentage of people living below the poverty level is
enormous (over seventy five percent).41
Poverty is a state of lack of requirements for living. This condition
prevents the individual or household from participating fully in social
life, since they are obliged to satisfy only certain needs sacrificing others
which are equally important.42 The initial initiative that characterized the
communities of the pueblos jvenes has fizzled out. Given that poverty and
lack of time are concentrated in these areas, new inhabitants do not form
pressure groups and their organizations are weak. In the last five years, an
estimated two hundred illegal occupations of unsuitable zones in Lima have
occurred. The authorities do not show a great deal of interest in conditioning
these settlements, and the inhabitants now have less time and dedication to
invest in the development of their settlements.43
The process of obtaining land from the state, building a house, and
connecting it to the urban grid begins from a young age. While the first

The urban climate catalyst for

Nueva Union is just a small
part of the larger picture of
the ecological urbanism
proposed here. This design
reflects a return to
instrumentality, an
architectural response to the
ideon think global, act local.

24 | UCC
generations of the settlements were often immigrants from rural areas and
small villages, their children and grandchildren are children of the city and
do not have the same fundamental point of reference. The new generations
of the poor, who are urban by birth, find themselves in the city more as
consumers than as creatorsThe age of the population which lives in the
pueblos jvenes is on average lower than in the city as a whole. However,
trends in population growth do show a shift in the average age of the
pueblos jvenes in Comas which has engendered an evolution in the needs
of the population. Since reaching demographic stability, the problems that
require resolution now stem from the wave of youths who require higher
education, employment, and housing. At the same time, improvements in the
life expectancy and quality mean that there also exist large numbers of
elderly adults who require special services.44
WHAT DO THEY DO?
The women play an important role in the communities of the pueblos
jvenes. Often the need for independence, or for more space, was voiced by
the woman of the household. They are responsible for the terraces that make
hillside building possible in the outskirts of Lima. Using stones or car tires they
shape the landscape into a habitable form. 45
HOW ARE THEY ORGANIZED?
At present there are two main types of organizations in most pueblos
jvenes. Neighborhood organizations that group together householders in
a community are very important at the outset of the settlement process and
make possible the legalization of land tenure, elaboration of settlement
plans, and building and management of schools and health centers, as
well as for obtaining electricity and potable water. The second types are
often called womens organizations because of their tendency toward
matriarchal leadership. These communal organizations are generally very
broad ranging from traders and micro-enterprises to nutritional and sporting
organizations. They are also quite socially accepted within the low-income
community and play a critical role in the process of demanding urban
improvements as well as managing community business.

The intended beneficiaries

of the urban climate catalyst
are the members of the com-
munity called Nueva Union.
These are some of Limas
poorest families who have
little choice but to occupy the
least inhabitable plots of land
perched precariously on the
sides of the Andes Mountains.

UCC | 25
26 | UCC
To successfully understand
the needs of a small com-
munity in Lima, one must
begin by looking at the
country of Peru as a whole,
including its natural resources
and geo-climactic context.

UCC | 27
28 | UCC
The city of Lima has been
ranked The Least Sustainable
City in Latin America. Its
urban ecosystem needs sup-
port in the following areas:
Waste
Sanitation
Water
Air Quality
Land Use & Buildings
Environmental
Governance

UCC | 29
 Typical streetscapes in
Lima, Peru observed by the
autor in December 2012.

30 | UCC
The District of Comas began
as a small land invasion in
the 1970s. It is now Limas
most populous district.

UCC | 31
32 | UCC
Infrastructure does not serve
the residents of Nueva
Unions farthest reaches.
Inaccessability limits viable
materials for the proposed
architecture.

UCC | 33
34 | UCC
The urban climate catalyst
for Nueva Union is a thesis
proposal designed based on
a prototypical process for
architects and other designers
to interene in developing
cities facing the adverse
effects of climate change.
The approach looks at the
city as if it were a body and
draws parallels between the
human bodys systems and a
citys critical infrastructure.

UCC | 35
36 | UCC
Diagramming the
urban climate catalyst for
Nueva Union reveals a
living system composed of
wash houses, constructed
wetlands, and their users.
In the top right-hand corner
is a planned expansion to
use concentrated solar power
for the purification of sea
water and the generation of
zero carbon electricity along
with purified drinking water.

UCC | 37
 DOCUMENTS AND DRAWINGS:
THE URBAN CLIMATE CATALYST
FOR NUEVA UNION

38 | UCC
LIST OF PLATES:
1. PROGRAMMING DIAGRAM
2. DIAGRAMS CONTINUED
3. SITE SECTION A
4. SITE SECTION B
5. DISHWASHING STATION
6. LAUNDRY ROOM
7. SHOWER FACILITY
8. SPACE FOR EMERGENCE
9. INFORMAL ECONOMIC HUB

OPEN HERE
URBAN ClimaTE
CATALYST: PERU Laundry
Section A
Scale: 1 = 4

Preliminary

How It Works: Treatment

THE SYSTEM = (The community (The architecture THE RESULT = Constructed Wetlands
Retention Time = 3 Days

becomes...) creates...) Filtered Water

Back to Reuse
Permeable Pa
Locally Manufa

- Conservation
WASTE CLOSED LOOP EFFICIENCY - Mitigate Destruction
- Adapt to Changes

- Space for Ecology

Self-Healing Comm
TREATMENT SELF-HEALING COMMUNAL SPACE - Education
- Health Care

- Economic Stimulus
REUSE RESILIENT SUSTAINABILITY - Social Improvement
- Self Reliance
 Site Investigations:
Sketches from Lima

Wetland/
Building
Dishes
Relationship

Filtered Water
Piped Along Roof,
Heated By Sun

Permeable Pavers
Locally Manufactured

Preliminary

Communities:
Treatment
URBAN ClimaTE
CATALYST: PERU Shower
Section B
Scale: 1 = 4

Thermal Mass

The Living System:

Passive Ventilation

1 (Re)Use Preliminary
2
Treatment

Primary
3 Treatment

Sun Angles

4 Surface Flow
Constructed
Wetland
 Statements From
The Community:
We care about green spaces!

We care about our community!

Local Building Techniques

- Flat roofs - Two stories max;
- Light Materials frequent tremors
- Elegant wood carving - Wood & adobe; no
- Balconies for street local stone
watching - Entrance transition