Juan

Alejo
Morales
Mor
Cr. 48 # 150 A 40
BOGOT, COLOMBIA
UNIVERSIDAD DE LOS ANDES
Bogota, Sept 2010
juanalejomoralesmor@hotmail.com

Contents
Undergrad.
///Hybrids
///Dwelling
///Museum
///Hospital
///Research

Professional
///GM

Personal
///Bar
*2005-2011*

AXONOMETRIC VIEW

HYBRID INSERTED IN THE CONTEXT, THE

CASE OF THE CENTER OF BOGOTA
The approach to architectural design was based on major questions:
How to deal in the center of the capital of a developing country?
What operations are nee ded?
How should the project be?
Why is the project?
One of the biggest concerns generated by the project is the way and the look of contemporary architecture, the language used in architecture, in my
personal manner of seeing architecture as the primary engine of development for an emerging economy of a country like Colombia, where through the
architecture as a formal expression of man is given
a precedent of what is and will be a time, a cuttingedge image that represents a special place.

///CITY

DOWNTOWN BOGOTA

The project is settled in the city of Bogota, at an altitude of 2.600 meters, with a total area
of 175,000 ha, with an urban population of 6,950,000 in 2004.
Then the center is defined as the great catalyst for an emerging country.
Within the center of the capital of Colombia, it is unimaginable to see how urban opportunities
are expressed in gaps in which is possible to strategically intervene respecting the site. The
diagnosis of the center is simple, a great chaos of activities, people, applications, situations,
and memories that are mixed up in memory of the citizen and visitors.

///HISTORY

VOLUMETRIC TEST

Bogot is a city in which more than half of its population are immigrants from other parts
of the country where I understand this as a union of cultures in one place, situations that
manifest throughout the city like this, where we all live in a big city no matter
where they come from, the city understood as a hybrid of different cultures
where the representation of the local citizen loses and understands the citizen
as a citizen of all over the country and the world.

CARRERA SEPTIMA ELEVATION

Over the years, and the densification of the country and city due to the late industrial revolution, the historic center of Bogot began to have great importance as the core of a country of the developing world where being the capital of Colombia had large demonstrations of
different architectures, styles and situations that came a bit behind the European and North
American continent, many immigrants came because of the wars to Colombia and settled at
first in secondary cities but then on time at the capital and marked Colombian Architecture
as a great reference for Latin America where the native (for Modern Architecture) was
merged with the local architecture, leaving brush strokes of different architectures scattered throughout the city.
Bogot has been expanding since its founding mainly north along the axis of the Royal Street,
the longitudinal axis is of vital importance to the city for both transportation and for the
contemporary development of the city where the street trace understands growth as a hub
of innovation for the future, is like a time line where development took a course and can see
through this street over time and influence in the architecture of this city.

///SITE
The site is located one block from the historic city center on 19th Street and the Seventh
Avenue, for the research and information gathering, I found that block had no major changes
in its use, since the colony it began to be a great house where the writer Miguel Antonio Caro
lived and died, and also within the block there was the Church of Real Hospice, and some time
later there was the Real Hospice. After the death of Caro in 1909, was designed and built
the Real Academia Colombiana de la Lengua whose architect was the Italian Pietro Cantini and
was destroyed after the political events of 1948.
EAST FACADE

Since then the block of intervention has been without a specific use, this is why is very important to understand the condition of the site, sporadic shops were established for some
time, but the vast majority of time since 1948 has been a taxi and car parking. The block is
owned by the beneficence and has been subject to embargoes by individuals for which the
consignment has not been able to develop some use in it.
For the project I rely on site analysis to find uses, seeing in the mix of uses the best opportunity in how to proceed with the building.
The combination of uses
makes the building more
dynamic and is open to all
users, creating a large
public space in the atrium
of the building and the
building as a wall of the
same, bordering the interior space a flatness
where public space is understood as a container
for activities where anything can happen.

///TYPOLOGY

GREEN STAICASE

The concept comes from genetic hybridization and involves the cross breeding of different
species.
To Joseph Fenton in 1985, hybrid buildings had been ignored while these types of buildings
were listed as mixed-use. Graft hybrids, in which each program is shown by a separate volume.
Monolith Hybrid being subsumed within a continuous volume.
The hybrid is an opportunist building who takes advantage of their many skills.
The hybrid building seeks intimacy, unexpected and unpredictable, encourages coexistence
with each other, and is aware that unscheduled situations are key to their future.
As it depends on the individual nature of his creative process can take many representations,
even apparently contradictory urban landmark, sculpture, landscape or anonymous volume.
The ideal hybridization feeds on the meeting between the private and the public sphere. The
intimacy of private life and sociability of public life in the building hybrid anchors development.
The permeability of the hybrid over the city makes it accessible and private use of the equipment is expanding its schedule with the clock.

PROJECT GENERAL VIEW

///VOLUME
After several urban schemes and understanding the strengths and weaknesses of each
scheme of implementation, having the opportunity of urban emptiness and wide deck formal
intentions, after endless forms of intervention in the block, I decided through a qualitative
numerical analysis, where the winner was competing against 6 other volumetric proposals.
As a strategic intervention expressed by volume which in turn contained a unique application, each application then responds differently in its manifestation volume and composition
of the facade.
The volume was then first conceived as a conceptual reference to the mountain and second
as a purely formal operation that seeks to target the design goals given by the analysis of
the site and the city as both the understanding of the socio-cultural conditions: facing, raising, digging, setting back, get involved, programming, and removing.

///RESULT
The uses are primarily commercial in the first floor and mezzanine around the entire whole
forming a broken up square block, and on these subtle hinting volumes rise as a mountain,
where attached to it is vegetation that helps to purify the air of the site.
In prismatic volumes the hotel,an open plan offices spread over 2 wings and housing units
consisted of 3 types of living units.
As a general framework and urban layout, different situations arise in the block.Thus having
a micro-zoning within the block where understanding and taking into account certain design
implications of distributing a program where every facade is a different profile, with priority of program, intensity, pitch, volume and rhythm of facade that are uniquely expressed by
each program, but are globally as a whole, as the definition of Fenton catalog says the hybrid
building is grafted onto the context in which each of the agencies in use, is manifested in a
unique way, with different tectonic responses and compositional alternatives.
It seeks to target different users that come together in one building, where the combination of all these bring vitality to the urban landscape, making it active all day and all night,
intended to generate vitality, and this manifests itself in the city as an anchor to attract
people back to downtown Bogota.

having more active green surface in one place, as a favorable system to capture energy
from the sun, rain and wind. That is why the volumes of the whole system are understood
as prisms that are assimilated into the mountains from the Bogot landscape, mountanious
landscape and great design objective parameter of the whole.
Seeing the opportunity, it is of vital importance to understand the context as something to
interpret, but not just how it is understood as a volume like a mountain, but that is understood as a technical matter
where it is possible to have more
exchanges between human nature
and where to create more green
space translates into greater
energy savings.
The great generality of the projects approach is to comply with
the sustainability of the city,
and having green facade systems
seeking to reduce the parts per
million of carbon dioxide on site,
taking elements of the site as
the sun, wind, water, and how
these manifest in energy produced thereby reducing the expense and waste of the same
into the building.
So as great overall green project elements are arranged on the walls, as metal beams that
serve as pots where can grow different plants which are intended to meet the nutritional
needs of the building and that can be traded with other users.
The systems are basically able to use solar energy from the south, which is present all year
in the case of Bogota, for this reason solar panels are directed toward this direction, just as
the wind generator is arranged in such a way that intersects the winds from the mountains
coming down the avenue 19.

In terms of volumes, making estimates of surface, I realized that having a square compared
to a triangle, where the longest side is in the hypotenuse of the triangle, thus creating more
green space, vital for the urban planning of the project in terms of sustainability, where

CARRERA OCTAVA ELEVATION

HOUSING UNITS PUBLIC SPACE - SKYGARDEN

TYPE A DWELLING

TYPE B DWELLING

/////////FACING///////////////////RAISING////////////////DIGGING+SETTING BACK////GET INVOLVED+PROGRAMMING ///////////REMOVING./////////////////////RESULT///////////

OFFICE SPACE - THE FREE FORM PLAN

DWELLING SECTION

HOTEL SECTION

OFFICE
VIEW

HOTEL
VIEW

140

204

Dwelling Lab
School Project

Facatativa, Colombia
Design and Research for mid
income families in a suburb
near Bogot, the design had
into account the different
possibilities for itinerant
types of people involved in
complex habitats.
The research was based on
understanding the site and
what was going around to it
as a catalyst of activities
inside de atrium.

443

147

(August - December 2008)

70

212

638

80

99

611

203

70

Juan Alejo Morales Mor

Giorgio Badalacchi M.

297

140

Perfil 2

BOGOTA

31.628

AREA UTIL

7,1

58%

18%

20%

100%

Alturas

comercio por
definir en franja

2 pisos

3 - 4 pisos

5 pisos

Manzana 4: 7,042

Manzana 3: 7,337

Manzana 2: 7,914

Manzana 1: 9,335

Areas

Perfil 3

Perfil 4

El equipo que desarrolle la manzana 1 tiene el deber de generar una circulacin desde la calle hasta el interior del parque, por esa misma
razn la manzana 1 es ms grande en tamao. La Circulacin tiene que ser de manera clara y nunca estar cerrada a ninguna hora.

Cada manzana intentara de generar una conexin con el espacio pblico del centro, dada la conexin hacia la ronda del rio y la planeacin de
2 puentes que comunican cada lado de la manzana se promueve que las circulaciones estn cercanas a estos puentes o en dado caso que
tengan armona con estos.

El acceso a los parqueaderos debe ser un acceso en pompeyano, dando prioridad al paso del peatn sobre el carro, es decir en caso de
haber alguna rampa, la rampa debe estar circunscrita dentro de los lmites de rea neta de cada manzana.

La zona de parqueaderos ser definida por cada proyectista de la manzana, teniendo en cuenta que se necesitan 30 parqueaderos y que las
vas del proyecto son perimetrales.

En las franjas de las manzanas que estn marcadas como comercio, se podr hacerlo de manera asimtrica respetando siempre que el
comercio este a doble altura y en caso tal que el perfil lo permita, podr dar salida a el antejardn.

La Altura estar dada por el diagrama de alturas en donde se muestra una franja de 16 metros en las cuales se debe respetar la altura
propuesta para as poder respetar el perfil, la altura se contara como numero de pisos y no por cantidad de metros.

Se reglamenta que por cada manzana deber haber un antejardn, dependiendo de la localizacin de cada manzana y de su perfil vial el
antejardn ser de 3 metros o de 5 metros (ver perfiles)

Comercio

9.770

AREA VIAS (en m2)

54.280

AREA NETA URBANIZABLE (en m2)

10.708

17.417

AREA AFECTACIONES (en m2)

AREA VERDE PUBLICA (en m2)

71.697

AREA TOTAL LOTE (En m2 y en ha.)

(Area Lote + Afectaciones)

CUADRO DE AREAS

FACATATIVA

URBANISMO

ENCLA VE

Perfil 1

INTENCIONES

PAISAJE

LUGAR

INTEGRACION

N 0,0

N 0,8

N 1,5

N 2,0

N 2,0
N 1,5
N 1,5

N 0,0

N 0,0

N 1,5

N 0,0

N 1,5
N 0,0

N 0,8

N 1,5
N 0,0

N 1,5

N 0,0

N 0,0

N 0,2

FIRST FLOOR PLAN

Taller Vertical vivienda optima

G i o r g i2o0 0B5 a1 1d6a3l1a c c h i J u a n A l e j o M o r a l e s

200521320

90 M2

81 M2

90 M2

38 M2

FLOOR PLANS
AND
SECTIONS

A - A

B - B

FACHADA B

Taller Vertical vivienda optima

G i o r g i2o0 0B5 a1 1d6a3l1a c c h i J u a n A l e j o M o r a l e s

200521320

Expansin Museo Nacional de Colombia

School Project (August-December 2007) Bogot, Colombia
Research and design for the Colombian National Museum, the studio was all about site design and the historic research across Colombian culture.
The national museum aimed to represent the Colombian values in a contemporary museum
dealing with complex site conditions.

SOUTH FACADE

URBANISM
FACADE DETAIL

NORTH FACADE

EXPO
SOUTH EAST VIEW

Site
Design

SPIN EXPAND
AND

SITES

School Project/Contest
(August - December 2008)
Norman,
Oklahoma, USA
(exchange semester)
Interdisciplinary design and
investigation about global sites
and its meaning on people and
time for a international contest
in Africa. (interior designers,
civil engineers, construction
managers and architects involved in the group)
The goal was to design for
global sites understanding the
concept of the non place and
chaos of a continent as Africa
taking into account site working
and progessive construction.

Global Sites

Movement of Buildings
Supply Different Site Necessities
Different Configurations in ONE BUILDING

Spinning

For Changing the Configuration,

Understanding the sites.

Expand

Wing Shape, Infinite expansion trough possible

faces. On demand.

BUILDING

Crossed Illumination
Water Roof Collectors

Crossed Ventilation

Responsible Use of Materials, Concrete Block,

Wood, Metal Roofing On Site LOCAL MATERIALS
Water Collection With the Roof Inclination
Crossed Ventilation in Every Wing
Possibility of Arraging 7 patterns for Solar Panels
depending on site Location

Roof Plan & Water

Storage Situation

EXTERIOR

DIFFERENT CONFIGURATIONS TO ENHANCE

SITE CHARACTERISTICS

UNDERSTANDING THE SITE AS A GLOBAL

SITE WHERE DIFFERENT SOCIO ECONOMIC
AND CLIMATIC ISSUES AFFECT THE
CONFIGURATION OF THE BUILDING IN
DIFFERENT WAYS.

OPPORTUNITY TO BUILD THE CLINIC IN

PHASES LEADING TO GROW IN TIME.

SUSTAINABILITY OF THE PROJECT

TROUGH TIME AND WEATHER.

On Genetics and Architecture

School research / Essay / Investigation Group
(January - December 2009) Bogota, Colombia

Nothing means more to the end of the era of man-and with it a certain anthropocentric conception of time, history and architecture that completion of the Human Genome Project, a
self-reference index of the man in a language that is not unique for the man.
The project, which would not have been possible without the convergence of great advances
in computing and biogenetic in the latter part of twentieth century, symbolizes the power
of instrumental reason in the transformation of the substance of the physical reality in the
field of possible worlds.
As a result, I now believe we are in
the early stages of transition in the
so-called post-human era, which will
witness new forms of bio mutation
machinery, substances and of values
that are in all aspects of life.
These changes in life situations in
the world are to extend the ontological dimension of architecture beyond the confines of anthropology:
a punctuated equilibrium that signals
the appearance of a phase transition, which in all probability, will rise to a neo-biological
civilization or other new world.

Morphodynamics orientation has taken two directions:

First, for example, in the work of Rem Koolhaas inadvertently conceives architecture as an
instrument of capitalism and therefore rarely questioned the inner logic of its formal constitution. It is based in the default language of modern architecture modular package and
complex flow of the derived programs external constraints imposed by the infrastructure,
density, branding, global market economy, not least of which is the Rem Koolhaas seal: the
ironic manipulation of the socio-political iconography in architecture.
Second, the emphasis on the so-called soft morphology is currently represented by a number
of young architects working in the digital domain, with little or no awareness of theoretical
biases implicit in their work.
These architects apply Morphing: based interactive dependency graphs are falsely linked to
external forces derived from the context, a example of misplaced concreteness that blurs
the distinction between modeling and
simulation.
Both approaches come tacitly concepts derived from the dynamic systems and chaos theory.
These are based on logic and flow
Morphing to give volume and shape
the architecture.
Behind these approaches is the assumption that the architecture is an
all adaptive discipline that lacks interiority, its rationale is based on which is woven, critically or otherwise, in a context determined by the forces and relationships.

As such, the architecture, along with the complex set of issues and conditions surrounding
it, is ultimately about building possible worlds from decoding the human genome by the new
technologies.

The morphogenetic approach, based on the logic of an inner principle or code that generates
the morphology, is to establish the autonomy of architecture.More linked to the idea of the
architect Peter Eisenman and the autonomy of the generative interior.

Although the architecture in the early twenty-first century is increasingly absorbed by the
general economy of the forces operating within the social, political and economic, this until
now has remained impervious to developments taking place in genetic engineering and biotechnology industry.

Although Eisenman is primarily concerned with the autonomy the discipline of architecture,
as it develops through history, the notion of autonomy that I propose to genetic architecture is based on the genetic code: a double logic recursion and self-replication based on the
principles of computing.

In this same two different architectural approaches have emerged within this context, characterized as morphodynamic systems and morphogenetic.

It is based on the development of morphogenetic potential implicit in the genetic code.

Whereas Eisenman s work with notion of interiority is derived from respect to genetics as to
what I might refer to as a hermeneutics of historical architecture, the concept of interiority
that I am proposing, contrary to the teleological interpretation of genetic architecture as
essentially interested in constitution of identity based on self-similarity, is headed other
embodiment of the self within itself: a form of radical otherness to encapsulate a strange
attractor in himself.
Paradoxically, this is a condition that results in withdrawal, in contrast to the resistance,
the appropriation of identity. In general, genetic determination is inherently plural: interactions of autonomous agents or genotypes give rise to final morphologies or phenotypes.
Genetic architecture could be understood as a emancipator movement hopefully to become an
example of the willingness of the architecture without degenerating disease manifestation
of self-indulgent.
Genetic architecture is perhaps the clearest example of appearance of the will of existence,
as an unequivocal statement of life, including artificial life, in perhaps all modalities.
The architecture is not taken for granted, nor is it a language frozen in time. To be imbued
with utopian aspirations, given the requirements to assume a prophetic call to be scanned
and placed with the generative.
We have reached a moment in history when the future of architecture faces to possibilities
that are waiting to be explored and brought to existence.
The world is inherently genetic and gen-era-tive in Propel to possible futures, so it is in the
genetic architecture in its movement towards the construction of possible worlds.

ESTVEZ, PUIGARNAU, PREZ. GENETIC ARCHITECTURES: ARQUITECTURAS GEN TICAS. LUMEN, INC. 2003
\\\
HENSEL, MENGES, WEINSTOCK. EMERGENCE: MORPHOGENETIC DESIGN STRATEGIES. ACADEMY
PRESS. 2004
\\\
LEWIS RICKI. HUMAN GENETICS, CONCEPTS AND APPLICATIONS. MCGRAW-HILL HIGHER EDUCATION, 5TA ED. 2003

Form follows function?

School / Essay
(August - December 2009) Bogota, Colombia
If the twentieth century was the century of art, the twenty first century with its rapid
urban growth is becoming the century of the city and of architecture at least thats how it
looks so far! Here in the first decade of the twenty first century the architect has already
taken over the role of the great, classic, modern artist as the darling of the media and societies magician who creates the fix points for global investment, urban development, cultural
life, mass tourism, and for the mass media in the form of television series, games and virtual
worlds the list is endless.
Architecture and construction are not just the icing on the cake of globalization as one might
think architecture and construction are to a great extent the very essence of what creates
globalization.
A hundred years ago 90 percent of the worlds population lived in the rural areas and the
remaining 10 per cent in towns. With the present and future development over the next few
decades the opposite will shortly be the case. The most common way of life for humans in
the 21st century will ever increasingly- be life in the colossally large conurbations that are
presently emerging.
This means that architecture, construction and urban planning now play much the same role
as they did after the World War Two in Europe. They were then and are now- central to the
design and construction of new, modern societies. Only now, this is happening at a global
level and is therefore of a magnitude, scale and pace that have never been seen before in
the history of mankind. The pace of development we see today is almost frightening.
The artistic creativity and clear talent for shape and space which informs on the understanding of the fact that form cannot follow function until the function in question has also
appeared as a potential of the form. In other words, the design work itself creates its own
meaningfulness which informs functionality.
Design work whether intuitive or systematic- does not only reveal how something might
look- it also shows us how life can be lived differently it points to the unforeseen!

///CONSTRUCTIVE ACTION
I like to understand the architecture as a constructive action and not as an image or representation. I understand that architecture is a technique that builds the world, that opens the
time-space that allows the transformation; I fall apart from the unfair comprehension of the
art as the representation of a world that its already built, I mean, the art as a figurative
structure engaged with the appearance and the illusion, as a lie of the world.
///REFLECTION ABOUT LIFE
I feel closely attracted to the roll that the art has been playing since the 20th century, and
I would want to insert my discipline (architecture) into that field: this means that I prefer
architecture when it has as a project to reflect about life rather than when it is responsible
for validating the institutions of power.
///REFLECTION ABOUT THE WORK (MY STUDY AND PROJECTS I DO)
I like to think that through architecture I reflect on my insertion into the world of work according to the capitalist model.
Does it allow me to work with independence? Make me relate in abstract with the objects
and the world? Does it explode in me and turn me into a spectacle? Does it imply that I have
to separate the manual labor from the intellectual? Is it possible to build democratic spaces
under this model?
///AFFECTIVE BEHAVIOR
I feel a desire for understanding architecture as an esthetic action, I mean, as an action of
the affective behavior.
///SIMULTANEOUS ACTIVITY
I think that architecture is a discipline in which doing and thinking are two names for a simultaneous activity: thinking through the action and act through the reflection.
I like to believe that I may lead to a reflexive practice of architecture and practice a reflection of it.
Before that the role of technical player, I prefer the architect in the role of thinker and collaborator of the world - for the construction role, the engineer.
///REUNION, EVENT AND RELATIONSHIP
I think that the ideas that refer to the site, to the situations and the ecosystems are in a
certain relationship: the possibility of gathering, the concrete life and the necessity of the
viable relationships with the environment, respectively, lead to the construction of an urgent position and distant from the abstraction and the simulation.
///DENSITY
I like the architecture that doesnt make a tabula rasa, because I think that any site, moment
or objects of attention are filled with projectual information.

///INSTANTS
I believe that the utile time for the architecture is the time of the instant, the one of everything here and now, loaded and concrete.
///CONGLOMERATE
Every project demands me a particular way of acting: geometry, materials, reflections and
words. To that conglomerate is what I call ideas, to the definition of an own word, the one
that even some contradictions are welcomed.
///AIR FLOWS
I believe that understanding the space as an abstract entity is way to abstract and limited.
I am interested in the space as a concrete act and material, with a changing temperature,
weight, time, movement: the space as an air flow.
Due to this I feel more attracted towards a reflection about the tectonic than to a work over
the empty space.
///LIFE
I feel that you are not an architect when you build but when you build as one: conducting reflections and actions on the material and affective world.
///RISK
I like to think in the flaws and shortcomings as active situations of work, and because of
that, I think that the normal conditions of a project are the insecurity and the risk.
///NECESSITY
The architecture can be a helpful device in the definition of social and natural agreements,
pending or in process. I prefer the necessary architecture, over the sanctuary. In this way I
position myself in front of the discipline
///PROCESS
It is possible to understand the architecture looking at other projects very time you study
them as a process and not as a static shape. However, the current architectures as a random
phenomenon constitute a good architectonic form.
///MIXED ARCHITECTURE
I understand the architecture as a confluence of different natural forces, temporary forces,
material and social. The fact that a project acts like a mix device, links it to the world with
a higher level of proximity and adaptation.
///MOMENTARY AGREEMENT
I think of the architecture project as an opened option or a momentary agreement.

General Motors Headquarters Colombia

Office Project (October-November 2010) Bogot, Colombia
Closed contest (2 other participant offices involved) for the refurbishment of GM
production plant and headquarters for South America branch.
The winner hasnt been defined at the moment but has several budgets involved that need to
be invested on immediately.

STREET VIEW

MAIN ENTRANCE

Bar Music & Ludic Center

Personal Project (January-February 2011) Cartagena, Colombia
Design of a public building with low cost materials for a low income town in the Caribbean
seashore of a developing country.
It was commissioned by the municipal government and is in the budget process waiting for
its approval.

SOUTH ELEVATION

SEASHORE GENERAL VIEW

NORTH ELEVATION

WORKSHOP VIEW

juanalejomoralesmor
architect

2005/2011
More Info Upon Request
For more projects, photos and stuff visit
www.flickr.com/juanalejomoralesmor
juanalejomoralesmor@hotmail.com