Challenging a Global Endeavor: Land + Water + Infrastructure is one in a series of experimental site-based studios that began in 2003 at Parsons the New School for Design to re-frame how we understand cities globally, intervene regionally, and experience locally. This research-based studio attempted to establish a set of strategies that considered problems of ecology, spatial organizations, design techniques, and material resolution. A senior studio at Parsons the New School for Design and pre-thesis studio at the Universidad Catolica del Ecuador collectively developed and exchanged new research methods to document and analyze an urban context and surrounding rural landscape. This multi-institutional and multi-disciplinary effort examined discourses surrounding the “global metropolis” as it transcends geographic limitations.

This prototype for a geothermal research center introduces a convergence of community and public programs as well as of urban and rural landscapes. Challenging traditional polycentric models of urban growth, NEW EDGE CENTERS identifies boundaries and maintains the distinction as well as the growth between urban and rural zones. Sited at the edge of Machachi’s urban and rural landscape, this proposal implies a possibility for developing an edge condition as an infrastructural prototype in order to contain urban sprawl and to provide public facilities that rely on both neighboring zones while encouraging new centers for new economies.

Este prototipo de un centro de investigacion geotermica propone la conjunction de comunidad y programas publicos asi como tambien be paisjes urbanos y rurales. Desafiando los modelos tradicionales policentricos de crecimiento. NUEVOS CENTRO-PERIFERICOS, indentifica limites y mantiene la distincion y el crecimiento entre las zonas urbanas y rurales. Situado al borde entre el paisaje urbano y rural de Machachi, esta propuesta implica la posibilidad de desarollar una condicion en periferie, como prototipo infrastructural para contener el crecimiento urban y proporcionar facilidades publicas que dependan de las zonas aledanas y asi incentivar nuevos centros para nuevas centros para nuevas economias.