Territorial Transit Hub.

Belén de Umbría, Risaralda, Colombia — 2023

The project began with an arrival. During an academic field trip to Belén de Umbría — a small municipality in Colombia’s coffee-growing corridor — our group stepped off the bus onto an open roadside with no terminal, no shelter, and no infrastructure to receive us. We walked to the main square with our luggage and boarded carpatis, the traditional jeeps that connect the town to surrounding villages, to reach our accommodation. That experience made visible something the town had long been absorbing invisibly: the absence of a dignified point of arrival. Back in Ibagué, early research revealed that the Municipal Land Use Plan (PBOT) had already designated a specific plot for a transit terminal — the problem was known, but unbuilt. Three design proposals were developed and tested against the site’s particular conditions: a significant topographic slope and a direct boundary with the municipal sports court. The selected scheme works with the terrain rather than against it, embedding the terminal into the landscape while creating a continuous sequence of public space that connects the town’s daily movement to its wider territory.