Self-Production and Pedestrian Mobility: Reconnecting Petare

2008 – 2010

Project Lead:

Ignacio Cardona

Team:

Ana Armas, Melina De Oliveira, Stephanie Batikoff, Denise Preschel, Alexandra Paty, Isaac Estanislao

Consultants:

Ali González, Visual Artist; Carlos Palumbo, Fundación Portal Petare

Clients:

Municipality of Sucre; Metropolitan Municipality of Caracas

Location:

Petare, Caracas, Venezuela

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Petare’s transportation hub concentrates approximately 20,000 pedestrians per hour, many traveling between surrounding self-produced settlements and the metropolitan transportation system. The project addressed this congestion by transforming a space dominated by transit into a network of pedestrian mobility and public spaces connecting Petare with the surrounding city.

Strategic interventions included the pedestrianization of the 97-meter-long La Paz Street, connecting the transportation hub with Petare’s historic center, and the reorganization of public transportation around a new terminal. Together, these interventions reclaimed space from vehicles and infrastructure to create plazas, pedestrian connections, and places for social exchange within one of Caracas’s most intensely used urban centers.