A research project exploring the impact of bottom-up urban acupuncture on informality in Buenos Aires, Argentina. ​​​​​​
March 2018 TU Delft  Masters coursework in collaboration with Facultad de Arquitectura, Diseño y Urbanismo
Location  Buenos Aires, Argentina  
Team  Sara Boraei, Tianyue Ma, Wenqian Ling, Siyun Feng 
Client  Local government of Morón and Hurlingham  
Population  4.8 Million 
Area  822 km2
"The Point: Embracing the Enigma of Informality as a Strategic Development Framework for the Municipalities of Morón and Hurlingham in Buenos Aires, Argentina"
Heavily influenced by the tide of globalization, the metropolitan area of Buenos Aires is now suffering from many problems, varying from environmental, economic and social decay, which is also the main cause of the informal settlements. We decided to focus on the most vulnerable area and people in the two municipalities and try to provide possible solutions to the most urgent and basic problems as addressed in the previous analysis, which are the flooding risk issue, unemployment, deindustrialization, contamination and social segregation. As we interpret the idea of acupuncture into an urbanism context, the essence of the project is to use the value of informality to build a systematic strategy through a bottom-up approach, which is local, low cost and less actors, allowing small interventions not only to be feasible but also have larger impacts. Moreover, because the interventions are based on existing local activities, it will be much easier to promote the projects with the help of community participation.
Acupuncture as an urban strategy.
A regional perspective: Analysing the spatialities of informality
Municipal site location
A municipal perspective: Locating 'acupoints' at the local level
Municipal Conclusion Map
Treatment of Acupoints: Interventions 
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