STORY TRAIL: The Art of Walking based on Patagonia Hydroaysen Damns
2013 Buenos Aires Biennale: SAP: “South America Project” Exhibition
Harvard Design 37 Magazine Urbanism Core. South America Project: A synthesis of Scales, Page 96
At the southern tip of the world rests a landscape of peaks and glaciers that rise and fall in a continuous cinematic disposition. One could explore and experience the Chilean Patagonia landscape through different means of transportation but not by walking. “Story Trail” is a proposal that utilizes the Hydroaysen Transmission Power lines and Construction Housing Camps from Baker 1 to Puerto Yungay. The hydro-power lines become an armature for a regional connective path that provides social recreation, tourism, forestry research, and protection. The project develops upon two regional conditions: First it expands the CONAF research facilities using Hydroaysen Construction
Housing Camps, and second, it expands upon the idea of experiencing Patagonia through the provision of a walking trail from Cochrane to Puerto Yungay.
Story Trail aims to appropriate the Hydroaysen Transmission Towers by coupling them with observatories that are used by forest keepers and hikers as viewing platforms throughout this programmed hiking trail. When Construction Housing Camps are decommissioned, their sites are used for CONAF research facilities and interpretive touristic/ hiker activities. Transmission Towers are selected by a systematic G.I.S view shed analysis to provide maximum visibility coverage for forest keepers and hikers. Both systems are then united through a hiking trail that provides 13 cultural stories about the Chilean region of Aysen.
This project provides a cultural platform that is coupled with the deterministic physical infrastructure of hydro-electricity. By doing that, Story Trail offers visitors the opportunity to understand Patagonia and its culture across different scales of movement and experience, most notably through the art of walking.