Bici Elote – Neighborhood Communication Tool
ATTENTION: THIS PROJECT IS THE RESULT OF A COLLABORATIVE PROCESS BETWEEN CTRL+ZY AND DIFFERENT AGENTS. FOR A CORRECT UNDERSTANDING, I INVITE YOU TO LEARN ABOUT THE OTHER SUBJECTS DIRECTLY INVOLVED: D1618 (BUDAPEST), THE NARWHAL (TAMPIQUITO), ALL FOR PRACTICE (MADRID).
In November 2010, Crtl+Z, in collaboration with Straddle3 and the San Pedro Implan, organized a series of neighborhood events in Tampiquito, San Pedro Garza Garcia, in the state of Nuevo Leon in northern Mexico. Tampiquito is a poor neighborhood caught between the wealthy, closed colonies of one of the richest municipalities in Latin America. This does not prevent it from being a neighborhood with a strong identity, a sense of belonging, and sociocultural and artistic dynamism. Even so, Tampiquito, with a population of about 1,500 people, suffers from a certain internal fragmentation between the upper and lower parts of the neighborhood, which are divided into three fragments each. This causes a lack of understanding on the part of the population of the sociocultural activities that take place in the various parts that make it up.
During the event we had the opportunity to get in touch with Luis Álvarez from the El Narval association, a well-organised neighbour who takes the socio-cultural animation of the area in which he lives very seriously. Once the event was over, I stayed in touch with Luis to create new collaborations and a specific project was developed for an exhibition that was never held. Despite this, the experience was very useful in keeping the complicity alive and in deepening the search for truly useful solutions for the neighbourhood.
During the event we had the opportunity to get in touch with Luis Álvarez from the El Narval association, a well-organised neighbour who takes the socio-cultural animation of the area in which he lives very seriously. Once the event was over, I stayed in touch with Luis to create new collaborations and a specific project was developed for an exhibition that was never held. Despite this, the experience was very useful in keeping the complicity alive and in deepening the search for truly useful solutions for the neighbourhood.
The themes were generally related to urban decorum, the difficult internal transport due to the topography and the absence of a public transport service, but they also focused on internal communication in the neighbourhood with proposals such as street boards, loudspeakers for activities, community mailboxes as well as tools for better cultural development, such as a residency for artists that would allow inviting foreign artists to carry out activities without the expense of the stay that in some cases prevents collaboration.
In March 2011, while the proposals were being developed, Crtl+Z was invited by Cedim, a university in the nearby municipality of Santa Catalina, to offer a summer course for its students in the second half of June. Diego Peris from the Madrid group Todoporlapraxis was immediately contacted and his willingness to join the course was confirmed, with the intention that the stay would be an opportunity for the joint development of a real project in Tampiquito. In June, the D1618 from Budapest joined the expedition.
On the first day of class, Luis takes a guided tour of the neighborhood and decides to focus the course on the park next to the health center, in the Barranca area, with an intervention that would improve the physical side, but also the mental aspect with the incorporation of elements of the place's identity.
At the same time, work began on a project that could address some of the problems that had been identified in the various meetings with local stakeholders.
From the beginning, Diego noticed the street vendors that drove around the neighborhood, as well as the streets of most of the country, and we began to study how to use these elements to address the problems of lack of communication that were always referred to, even when dealing with different topics.
We thought they would be an ideal way to empower the community through information, as they travel to different parts of the neighborhood several times a day to sell their products, which vary according to the season.
We thus propose the transformation of one of them, Bernardo's "bici-elotes", into a transmitter-receiver capable of energizing the cultural communication of Tampiquito as a whole.
The renovation project included a turn of the bell during transport for a faster and more effective dismantling of the existing roof. Maintenance work was carried out on the mechanical part, general painting, the replacement of the roof that had stability problems, but above all the car was given a different spirit and characteristics by incorporating an independent and transportable public address system. Some students of the course voluntarily got involved in this project, independently of the academic time frame, being of great help to the process.
During its tours, the car will function as a receiver of proposals and activities that will be delivered by Bernardo at the Narval headquarters to prepare an audio program that will be broadcast over the public address system in the following days.
From the beginning, Diego noticed the street vendors that drove around the neighborhood, as well as the streets of most of the country, and we began to study how to use these elements to address the problems of lack of communication that were always referred to, even when dealing with different topics.
We thought they would be an ideal way to empower the community through information, as they travel to different parts of the neighborhood several times a day to sell their products, which vary according to the season.
We thus propose the transformation of one of them, Bernardo's "bici-elotes", into a transmitter-receiver capable of energizing the cultural communication of Tampiquito as a whole.
The renovation project included a turn of the bell during transport for a faster and more effective dismantling of the existing roof. Maintenance work was carried out on the mechanical part, general painting, the replacement of the roof that had stability problems, but above all the car was given a different spirit and characteristics by incorporating an independent and transportable public address system. Some students of the course voluntarily got involved in this project, independently of the academic time frame, being of great help to the process.
During its tours, the car will function as a receiver of proposals and activities that will be delivered by Bernardo at the Narval headquarters to prepare an audio program that will be broadcast over the public address system in the following days.
The proposal provides a tool for Narval and all citizens and interested parties to promote cultural activities, using equipment that is already in use naturally in the area.
Working with subjects, elements and dynamics already present and active in the territory, providing new means and possibilities, without implying changes in their habits and work, was a conscious decision to promote the initiative to be successful and long-lasting, with improvement of the initial situation of all parties involved.
We believe that the implementation of communication tools such as “bici-elote” can be a great starting point for any other activity that can be carried out in Tampiquito.
We believe that the implementation of communication tools such as “bici-elote” can be a great starting point for any other activity that can be carried out in Tampiquito.
2015 Four years later
The death of Mrs. Martha, one of the leaders of Tampiquito, as well as other events, have shaken and reshaped the balance of the neighborhood. Bernardo, finding a more stable and better-paid job in a restaurant, left the street sale of corn on the cob. He lived with his wife in a room rented by Mrs. Martha and now lives down the street, while his first son was born. Bernardo's father, Feliciano, is still in the corn business but uses his own tricycle. Luis is developing a stay abroad, the corn bike remains decorative in the restaurant where Bernardo now works.
All this shows how in neighborhoods like Tampiquito, which are located and constitute at the same time “the border” between the planned city and the spontaneous one, between the formal and the informal, between the “rich” city and the “marginal” one, there exist other types of codes, forms of association, communication and wealth.
Where institutions are less effective, local people take over and design the neighbourhoods and their functioning, which often develops in parallel, in addition to or independently of official urban policies. This creates specific urban planning and neighbourhood policies for each community, which, in the absence of other resources, are based on the people and their particular way of organising and collaborating.
In those communities that manage to configure these dynamics under positive and productive schemes, a neighborhood awareness and identity is created that can provide a certain level of resilience to the changes of the citizen actors involved.
What in other latitudes is being celebrated as a return to more participatory urban planning, architecture and social structures, is in neighbourhoods like Tampiquito a natural part of life and of the neighbourhood that has been evolving and adapting to the different situations and subjects that have been alternating in it.
The corn bike is a tool that is waiting for new people to take it over and decide to add value to it by taking it back out onto the streets for uses and functions that are not initially plannable or completely predictable, as they will follow and adapt to the evolution of the neighborhood itself.
