Advanced Design Studio

Nestled in a cloud forest in Northern Peru, the remains of the ancient city of Kuelap stands as a cipher to understanding the abiding mystery of a lost civilization linking the Andes to the Amazon basin. Although much is still unknown, the clearing of forests in Bolivia, Brazil, and Ecuador, has provided evidence of intensely populated Pre-Columbian garden cities in the Amazon. In Peru, The Chacapoyas civilization (8th – 16th century) facilitated trade between these communities and those higher in the Andes. Kuelap was a prominent cultural and commercial hub for the Chacapoyas.

This civilization, like its Amazonian neighbors, was completely forgotten. The remains of Kuelap were discovered in 1843, but due to its inaccessible location, it was not studied until the 1930s. It was only opened to the public at the beginning of the 21st century, but had minimal infrastructure or capacity to receive tourists. A cable car was constructed in 2017, vastly improving access. After repairs to a collapse of part of its walls, the site reopened in 2023 and is now projected to become a tourist destination equivalent to Machu Picchu.

This represents an opportunity to rethink the relationship between cultural heritage, both tangible and intangible, and visitors in an attempt to avoid the mistakes of the past and prevent over-tourism. It is within this framework that the need arises to design a Visitor Center serving as a link between the archeological remains of an extinct civilization, the communities that inhabit this territory today, and future visitors from around the world.

The studio will focus on providing concrete and meaningful solutions and guidelines that will inform a future project to be implemented by the Peruvian State.

This design-based studio will search for new relations between landscape, infrastructure, and culture, pushing the limits - and sometimes blurring them - between architecture and landscape, redefining connections between buildings, open-air spaces, natural and human ecologies, and pre-existing conditions.

At the start of the studio, students will work in teams, developing research around a series of relevant topics. The studio will build a collective knowledge for understanding the site and the challenges it presents. In a second stage, students will develop architectural research individually to imagine ideal architectural, spatial, and environmental conditions to inhabit this specific place.

With help from lectures by experts, we will also build an understanding of the archeological site, the relationship with local communities, and its projection to the world. These will constitute the basis of a sensible and responsible approach to intervene on the site.

We will travel to Peru, visit the site of Kuelap in the Amazonas Region, meet with the authorities of the Peruvian Department of Culture that runs it, and subsequently travel around the region to understand the dynamics between landscape, infrastructure, culture, and climate. We will visit outstanding examples of the Chachapoyas culture in this region. In Lima, we will visit key sites that illustrate historical and contemporary architecture.

Upon returning to school, students will work in pairs to develop responses that catalyze the programs of a visitor center, community spaces, lodging, and their own proposed program. These proposals will be multi-scalar, ranging from landscape design to architectural details. The development of the projects will unfold in five phases:

1. FINDING: will focus on design research with a highly personal approach, coupling specific inquiries with open-ended explorations that yield unexpected responses. Multi-disciplinary lectures about the main topics will complement it.

2. GROUNDING: will focus on understanding the complexity of the site and the challenges that we must face, mainly through the visit to the specific site as well as the region. It will emphasize placemaking, carefully studying the topological characteristics and the spatial relation towards the archeological site.

3. POSITIONING: will locate the programs, activities, and buildings on the site. It will also demand that students take a position concerning intervening around a heritage site and what role contemporary architecture can play in benefiting the community.

4. FOUNDING: will concentrate on the overall and refined design, integrating landscape, architecture, and detail scales in a comprehensive intervention.

5. FOCUSING: will bring special attention to a component of the project and develop it to the scale of the detail.

While proposing contemporary solutions to our site’s challenges, the aspiration is that student projects will also draw from ancient knowledge, local materials and technologies to restore a new sacredness to this place.