EDUCATOR
Cali, Colombia
PopuLab: Laboratory for Popular Neighbourhoods
EDUCATOR
Cali, Colombia
PopuLab: Laboratory for Popular Neighbourhoods
Project Team
Ángela Franco-Calderón
César Londoño
Gynna Millán
Gabriel Visconti
Isabella Jaramillo
Jackeline Murillo
Ciro Jaramillo
Lina Cárdenas
and Jorge Gallego
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PopuLab is a research, teaching, and action platform based at Universidad del Valle, Colombia. It operates as a territorial platform working with residents of selfbuilt neighborhoods, and as an academic design studio training future architects.
Overview
The PopuLab is a research, teaching, and action platform based at Universidad del Valle, Colombia. It operates as a dual strategy: a territorial platform working with residents of selfbuilt neighborhoods, and an academic design studio training future architects and urban practitioners. The PopuLab supports the social production of habitat through participatory, data-driven, and intersectional methodologies that translate community knowledge into inputs for local planning and policy. Tested in Cali’s Comuna 18 and extrapolated to the municipality of Guapi on Colombia’s Pacific coast, The PopuLab advances localized SDG implementation by linking comprehensive neighbourhood upgrading, climate adaptation, and territorial peace with professional education and public decision-making.
Institution
Universidad del Valle
School of Architecture, Laboratorio de Barrios Populares, PopuLab
Community Engagement
The PopuLab works through long-term, trustbased engagement with residents of popular neighborhoods, using participatory mapping, surveys, interviews, and community-led video. These processes enable communities to identify priorities, co-produce data, and actively shape territorial proposals and planning outcomes.
Partners
Municipal Planning and Housing Secretariats of Cali and Guapi; Community Action Boards; community leaders from engaged neighborhoods and interdisciplinary academic teams
