Design Lessons in a Mountain Landscape

COSME Arquitectura presents Design Lessons in a Mountain Landscape, an article that addresses the environmental richness and vulnerability of mountainous landscapes in Latin America. It proposes the need for careful interventions to protect these ecosystems and their historical memory.

In Latin American geography, the dual condition of mountain landscapes is reflected: the environmental and scenic richness in their diverse orography, but also the fragility of the ecosystems and communities that inhabit them. In these spaces rest the memories of our pre-Hispanic ancestors, economic and social struggles for the right to land, and more recently, images of vulnerability due to climate change.

Today, many of these landscapes suffer the consequences of neglect: forest fires, illegal mining, informal occupation, among others, which make the correct mediation with urban environments necessary, and in landscape architecture, an opportunity to highlight and protect them.

Each mountainous landscape has its own particularities, and intervention in these types of territories requires a careful study of their conditions, but also a sharp sensitivity to decide what is truly necessary. Below are some considerations to keep in mind when intervening in these landscapes:

Water Memory

A mountain landscape is, above all, a water source. In these landscapes, geographic time has shaped a network of runoff, basins, and micro-basins that enable the emergence of rivers and streams that nourish urban environments. Recognizing the different ways in which water stays, flows, or intermittently moves over the topography is essential for proposing strategies that highlight this resource and, above all, allow its protection over time.

Escorrentías Cerros de Bogotá / Runoff from the Bogotá Hills
Ilustración / Illustration: Cosme Arquitectura y Paisaje, Coordillera Sur y Arq. Johanna Narvaez

Peaks, Ridges, and Character

The most emblematic condition of this type of landscape is defined through their peaks and ridges, the summit of the mountain. It represents its iconic outline, but also a place full of meaning and sometimes even veneration. The intervention of these points, usually privileged for their views, should be considered based on what is necessary for each territory. In many cases, these peaks and ridges were occupied in the past and contain memories, narratives, and stories that may be relevant in the present. The relevance of what happens at the summit and ridges is crucial for the hill to retain its memory, but also, to carefully endow it with a new identity.

Cimas Cerros Cali, Trabajo Académico / Cali Hills Peaks, Academic Work
Ilustración / Illustration: Kenhdruy Rios y Alejandro Diaz

Slopes: Diversity and Journey

If the peaks and ridges define the character of a mountain landscape, its slopes consolidate much of its environmental richness. Usually accompanied by water bodies, the slopes define the topographic gradients: the fundamental condition for the presence of various ecosystemic conditions and the way different scenarios can be revealed. Depending on the type of escarpment, the slopes define the experience of ascending and descending, their types of trails, and possible resting places. Here lies the possibility to discover and restore ecosystems that may have remained vulnerable.

Estrategias del proyecto Correr la tierra, cerros bogotá / Strategies of the project “Correr la tierra”, Bogotá Hills
Ilustración / Illustration: Cosme Arquitectura y Paisaje, Coordillera Sur y Arq. Johanna Narvaez

Edges of Contact

The edges of the mountain landscape represent its most vulnerable condition, but also the closest point of interaction with urban contexts. These spaces become the mediating point for natural protection, but in many cases, they are also the site of the most significant impacts: collapses due to water runoff, forest fires, illegal occupations, among others. These are some of the risks to which the edges are exposed. A proposal for intervention at the edges should encourage an interaction that protects, but also fosters careful approaches to these natural bodies. Public edge spaces, rainwater mitigation parks, and firebreak trails are some alternatives for what this mediation space could offer.

Senderos del proyecto “Correr la tierra”, cerros bogotá / Trails of the “Correr la tierra” project, Bogotá hills
Ilustración / Illustration: Cosme Arquitectura y Paisaje, Coordillera

The Resilience of Mountain Landscapes

Many of these landscapes, especially those close to urban contexts, urgently need care today. Landscape architecture has the potential to bring us closer to these at-risk scenarios and revalue the natural wealth present in various geographies. However, many of these territories do not need further intervention—only what is necessary to protect them and allow their ecosystems to recover. The challenge will be to find ways in which these landscapes can be showcased, but where human intervention acknowledges their limits and, in many cases, their need to recover on their own.

Landscape architecture has the potential to bring us closer to these at-risk scenarios and revalue the natural wealth present in various geographies.

Bordes de Cerros Cali, trabajo académico / Cali Hills Edges, academic work
Ilustración / Illustration: Kenhdruy Rios y Alejandro Diaz