Activity and Scenography as Tools for the Reinterpretation of Spontaneous Domestic Spaces in Usme

The research presented addressed the relationship between activity and scenography as a tool to reinterpret housing in
spontaneous developments, based on a case study in the San Germán neighborhood (Usme, Bogotá). The starting argument was the qualitative precariousness of domestic spaces that limits the development of activities by not projecting the evolution of their internal divisions over time; this condition becomes a risk for the community particularly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to data from the World Health Organization (WHO, 2020).
Given this initial condition, a case study was conducted to contrast the main activities and types of scenography in the community’s households to recognize associated spatial configurations. This allowed for proposing a prefabricated housing system, flexible and adaptable to their needs, activities, and location as part of a research process that concluded that, in low income sectors, conventional ‘ideal’ typologies cannot be established. Instead, a systemic vision is required in which a programmatic system is established, along with different variations of multifunctional scenographies, so that users can freely interact with them and alter the space according to different housing, productive, and collective activities they engage in, maintaining the
characteristic social fabric in self-managed territories that have been at risk due to occupation of urban peripheries and protected areas.