Henry Pulido Garzon

Ambalema's Art Haven

Heritage reborn through creativity


Ambalema’s Art Haven proposes a cultural and educational sanctuary for the rural municipality of Ambalema, Colombia, a town shaped by the Magdalena River, a tobacco-driven architectural legacy, and decades of socio-economic decline. The project responds to a central question: How can architecture reactivate local heritage while expanding children’s access to arts education in communities where creative development is often considered a luxury? 

Using the abandoned 19th-century train station as its point of departure, the design embraces adaptive reuse without physically touching the heritage structure. The station becomes a protective envelope, framing a new interior world while preserving its material and historical identity. This duality between old and new allows the project to honour Ambalema’s traditions, while introducing contemporary spatial tools to support learning and community gathering. 

At the heart of the proposal is a network of modular bamboo learning pods, flexible in scale and use. These units support instruction, play, individual exploration, and collaborative work. High, softly daylit volumes evoke a sense of monumentality, while lower roofs and intimate galleries reflect the town’s characteristic street patterns. Circulation echoes Ambalema’s vernacular grid, creating an environment where children navigate space as they navigate their own curiosity. 

Colour, texture, and materiality are used deliberately: local pigments, patterns and bamboo connect the architecture to the landscape and to the emotional memory of Ambalema. The project’s envelopes, soft fabrics, filtered light, and open-air roofs seek not only to shelter but to trigger sensory engagement, grounding learning in everyday experience. 

More than a building, Ambalema’s Art Haven is conceived as a cultural catalyst. By providing children with creative tools, welcoming external artists, and re-activating a central public space, the project positions arts education as a driver for long-term social growth. It aims to restore pride in local heritage, create new routines of community life, and demonstrate how architecture in rural contexts can bridge the past and the future, quietly but fundamentally reshaping the possibilities of a place. 

Graduation date: 10 september 2025 
Graduation committee: Wouter Kroeze (mentor), Peter Defesche, Raul Correa Smith
Additional members for the exam: Jo Barnett, Jan Richard Kikkert