INTERSECTION. Palo st X Maturin st. Part 1 Project 2003 Juan Carlos GomezSasha Greig National University of Colombia - Medellin campus | Colombia The intersection between El Palo Street and Maturin Street (45 St. X 45 St.) is a chaotic point, dominated by vehicles, and forgetful of the pedestrian and the habitant. In a city where the façade works as a barrier and not as a connector, where the commerce prevails over the development and the social interaction, this place has no part in this wrongly called urban development.Because of its location, the egg, as it is known locally because of its unusual shape, could function as a gate to downtown, a urban detonate, but on the contrary works as a cork and back side, without letting the complete development of its surroundings and the interaction of the different moments of the city and scales of the city. The place needs to give the habitant and the pedestrian spaces that belong to them, city spaces that don’t restrict or create barriers. Equipping the city and the neighbourhood with learning and cohabitation spaces instead of ones purely for survival.The project is conceived from the same place. The “egg” (as it is known) is a referent in the city, because of its shape; it’s a point of location in downtown. But all the features of this site are not being exploited to its best. It is a place that has a unique urban composition, giving a space that together with the architectural element doesn’t contribute to the city as much as it can. The project started with the shape of an egg, developing the advantages and needs of the site. Mobility, interaction and evolution are parameters that are developed in the project, belonging to the place and performing as an urban detonator of development and city interaction.The project emerges from a topography, from the abstract city. Going up, going down, staying, circulating. Medellin is a dynamic city, full of transitions, levels and faces. We want the habitant to be able to go over the city. The general volumetric starts from a modern container, where the initial shape of the batch is preserved, but inside the relation of filled and empty spaces has a different intention beyond the formalism. It’s to go over the entire space, visual and physically, allowing permeability and lightness, making the empty space the element that articulates the project. The structure and the emptiness that this generates, makes the transition, a column forest that connects the ground floor with the programmatic development of the project. The element, that is both functional and formal, pretends to link ”the earth and the sky”. Juan Carlos GomezSasha Greig Tutor(s)