The proposal seeks to provide this important area with new spaces for circulation.

The project is based on the creation of a square and a public park, whose shape has the effect of widening and linking the geometry of the different grids to obtain an ordered structure of roads and accommodating new residential buildings.

The high demand for residential buildings is the other great design challenge. Therefore, the layout of the buildings is determined by logical environmental criteria: the amount of sunlight and protection from prevailing winds.

This project involves developing the landscaping and architectural design of the Chagual Botanical Garden, located in the Metropolitan Park of Santiago. Expanding across more than 700 hectares of land, it is the fourth largest urban park in the world, and it is located near the city center, on the banks of the Mapocho River.

The landscaping design covers approximately 45 hectares of the total area of the gardens. It incorporates a combination of plants that builds native landscapes using Mediterranean species from four parts of the world. Its mission is to promote the development of a culture of nature that values the natural heritage of central Chile and to display its species and ecosystems, thus promoting their study and disseminating their importance, incentivizing conservation and cultivation.

The scope of the architectural tender includes the design of the main buildings within the Botanical Garden, consisting of 51,650 square feet of constructed area in two separate phases.

The developed proposal looks for a way to structure the entire experience, defining a path to wander and position oneself on the hillside so that the visitor can visualize and understand a complete story that integrates botanical contents and the geographical characteristics of the area, as well as its relationship with the city and the Mapuche cosmogony.

The main buildings have been strategically located to create an accessible route through the garden and a natural flow to the places of interest. How the buildings are laid out helps generate different instances along the journey, such as the direct relationship with the land, the appreciation of the landscape from above, the immersion in the vegetation and the creation of rest areas.

In the absence of a Land Management Plan to regulate the three districts of the Distrito Nacional, the new Masterplan will ensure the orderly development of what may be the last significant area of undeveloped land in the city.

Therefore, we are working on promoting an ambitious project that offers a unique buying opportunity and a development without precedent. Besides being unifying, flexible, sustainable and eco-friendly, it is, above all, distinctive and innovative, with an added value that will turn it into a landmark. This focal point for activities will produce synergies and become attractive for both residents and visitors.

In addition to containing a unique residential development, the Masterplan will create what could become one of the most important centers of commercial, institutional and leisure facilities in the entire Distrito Nacional. From consolidating and generating a new facade front on both sides of the Avda. República de Colombia will achieve not only an increase in the land value of these plots but also that of all around them.

The project is organized in two areas differentiated by their use and location:

• Reserva Los Robles: This is a predominantly residential development on lands with the highest environmental value. A unique place to live in harmony with nature, surrounded by an essential green ecosystem. The project started with the original design of the architect Rafael Selman.

• Tertiary, Commercial and Services Area of Los Robles: in the land located on both sides of Avda. República de Colombia, with part facing the new American Embassy and part acting as the front of the new residential development.

The P.E.T.O.T. (Urban and Territory Strategic Plan) is a planning tool designed to transform 54,857 acres of land in the North of Samaná Peninsula into a new urban landmark with its own character and identity. The main goal is to turn this area into a landmark recognizable both nationally as a place to gather and internationally as a new destination.

In PHASE 1, the strategy was defined by establishing the following guidelines:

1 Connectivity: making Samaná a connected area where pedestrians play a central role the public realm.

2 Diversity: Samaná Peninsula aims to be a diverse territory where coastal tourism is combined with mountain and landscape tourist attractions.

3 Community: Samaná will be supplied with a complete-multifunctional equipment system.

As a next step and considering different scales, PHASE 2 settles down a proposal containing a territory and tourism model based on protecting and enhancing landscape and natural resources. This phase establishes a sustainable transport and mobility network that improves global accessibility to the area while pointing out the preferred location of both local and general equipment and facilities that aim to enrich residents’ and visitors’ quality of life.

The Tourism and Complementary Services Masterplan in Macao, on the Dominican East Coast, is an innovative project, which under a global structuring idea of maintaining the Mangrove, offers a flexible and adaptable proposal for any future investment expectations.

The action covers an area of 1,828 acres in a field of natural expansion. The goal of the project is to carry out an unprecedented intervention at the environmental level, which not only responds to the multiple development opportunities that the area allows —leaving open the profile of future investors and the product they intend to implement— but, on top of that, put the Mangrove and the vegetation on the center of the design, not only preserving it but also enhancing its revitalization.

From these lines of action, luis vidal + architects has created an exclusive and innovative design methodology that transforms it into a ‘board game’ with the following guidelines:

– The board game represents the site and all the fixed and structuring conditions of the project, including the lines of action.

– The cards are a catalog of cells on which the investors choose (size, number of building levels, location, etc.).

– The players are, on the one hand, the investors who choose the type of pieces and where to place them on the ground from the previous conditions and, on the other, luis vidal + architects who, through a parameterization system, will specify the zoning of uses and land occupation.

The renovation of Jones Plaza is presented as a revitalizing element for the city around it.

Within the urban fabric of the city of Houston, the intention is to create a focal point for its inhabitants, providing a nerve center for the downtown arts and theatres with a recreational space non-existent until now in the city.

The citizen will once again enjoy the current Plaza through its expansion and the elimination of parking areas. The new Plaza integrates with the surrounding buildings and removes elements that have fallen into disuse. The restaurant areas, open to the center of the square, are integrated into the space, focusing on the development of different artistic expressions.

The new Plaza project aims to become a unique focal point within the city of Houston. Becoming part of the network of public spaces that seek to reclaim the city for the pedestrian.

Urban Regeneration and Master Planning Award. MIPIM Future Projects Awards 2009.

The project proposes reconnecting the city and reviving the most disadvantaged areas through intensive land use and mixed-use systems.
The incorporation of a single and continuous boulevard, more than 2,5 miles long and up to 200 feet wide, is proposed, combining elements that will enrich the social and cultural life of the city.

A pedestrian promenade through green spaces and small parks, a bicycle path, an area for new urban facilities, and a corridor to incorporate a new public transport system. A doubly sustainable project in terms of environmental design and economy.