Dwelling and resistance: urban regeneration for Residencial San Felipe
Residencial San Felipe in Lima stands as both an architectural landmark and a living experiment in modern urbanism. Conceived in the 1960s, during a period of explosive population growth and a deepening housing crisis, the project emerged from President Fernando Belaunde Terry’s vision of a function...
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| Tipo de recurso: | tesis de maestría |
| Fecha de publicación: | 2025 |
| País: | España |
| Institución: | Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC) |
| Repositorio: | UPCommons. Portal del coneixement obert de la UPC |
| Idioma: | inglés |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:dnet:upcommonspor::b9b05409cfcce7a7abaed6a2604aaeb5 |
| Acceso en línea: | https://hdl.handle.net/2117/461044 |
| Access Level: | acceso abierto |
| Palabra clave: | Residencial San Felipe (Lima, Peru) City planning -- Peru -- Lima Cluster housing -- Peru -- Lima Housing Interstitial spaces Urban regeneration Collective memory Residencial San Felipe (Lima, Perú) Urbanisme -- Perú --Lima Conjunts residencials -- Perú --Lima Àrees temàtiques de la UPC::Urbanisme |
| Sumario: | Residencial San Felipe in Lima stands as both an architectural landmark and a living experiment in modern urbanism. Conceived in the 1960s, during a period of explosive population growth and a deepening housing crisis, the project emerged from President Fernando Belaunde Terry’s vision of a functionalist, socially conscious city. Built on land with layered histories —from pre-Hispanic canals to a modern racetrack— the complex embodied modernist ideals through its innovative design: four towers clustered around a central agora, communal patios fostering vertical neighborhoods, elevated “streets in the sky,” and the radical dedication of more than half its 26 hectares to open green spaces. Beyond its design, San Felipe’s significance lies in how residents have shaped it over decades, adapting entrances, enclosing gardens, and negotiating the balance between openness and security to create what many describe as an “oasis of safety.” These acts of appropriation highlight the active role of inhabitants as co-producers of their environment. Yet tensions persist, particularly over the ambiguous status of shared areas and the sustainability of maintaining vast gardens with potable water. A proposed regeneration strategy seeks to revive the ancient Huatica Canal system and replace sealed surfaces with permeable soil, reconnecting the community to its ecological and cultural past. In contrast to speculative developments that prioritize profit over livability, San Felipe offers a vital lesson: humane density, social cohesion, and ecological awareness can coexist, making it not a relic of modernism but a living model for more just and sustainable urban futures. |
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