Master plan to transform the Jorge Wilstermann airport in urban park

Currently, the Jorge Wilstermann airport is an urban wound of 343 hectares, which fragments the city and through which the Rocha river crosses, the most important river in Cochabamba, but also the most polluted, constituting a risk for public health, since these waters are used to irrigate crops in agricultural areas.

The great challenge that the city of Cochabamba will have in the following decades will be to regenerate from within, that is, to identify urban wounds or problem areas where to intervene with strategic urban projects on different scales. In this sense, the Jorge Wilstermann airport is considered a problematic infrastructure due to its location within the urban radius and the air pollution it generates, in addition to the risk of air accidents as it is surrounded by highly populated neighborhoods, which is why for several decades it has already been has raised its relocation to another site.

In this context, our work re-imagines the city of Cochabamba from the transformation of this obsolete and problematic infrastructure into an urban park. The project explores the potential of the land of the current Jorge Wilstermann airport, and its possible transformation into a public park, which due to its privileged location within the metropolitan area of Cochabamba will enable the foundation of a new green centrality, a space for integration and cohesion social, but above all a powerful oxygenation system that will restore environmental balance and enable a reconfiguration of the city in favor of the common good.