PORTABLE OTLA

The PORTABLE OTLA seeks to create an accessible GATHERING SPACE in the form of a minimal ad-hoc civic device. It comes from a familiar typology in the subcontinental context: a raised platform and a tree, used as a space for public life to take place in a referential location. In the same manner that the everyday otla serves as SHELTER under the shade, the proposed device inverts the same as a box of light, while the original trunk becomes a shelf (or, one could even say; a micro-library), and the heavy base becomesa FLOATING PLATFORM. The aim of the project is to highlight a self-evident condition: the importance of open-ended and accessible public spaces, as vital places that can significantly increase the public's quality of life, yet that do not seem to be priority in urban development narratives. This proposal, however, seeks to push these ideas to its frugal extremes, as something that can be PACKED-UP and TRANSPORTED to any other context to serve dissimilar purposes. Therefore advocating for an urban design of the reversible that uses the minimum amount of resources required, and can be later RECOVERED and REPURPOSE