Lecture: Amphibious Urbanisms / Reasserting the Ciénaga Grande as Counter-landscape in the Colombian Caribbean

Monday, November 2, 2026
5:15pm - 6:30pm
Thomson Hall (Room 202), Richardson Memorial Hall
Tulane University, 6823 St. Charles Avenue
New Orleans, LA 70118

This lecture is open to the public.

Invited lecture "Amphibious Urbanisms / Reasserting the Ciénaga Grande as Counter-landscape in the Colombian Caribbean," will be presented by  Juan Diego Martinez Otalvaro, Tulane/KU Leuven Fellow, and Santiago Ocampo Palacio, Tulane/KU Leuven Fellow. This lecture is part of the Fall 2026 Lecture Series and Public Programs: "Emergency: Planning and Adaptation."

LECTURE SUMMARY

As cities confront the accelerating consequences of climate change, dominant urban models founded on impermeability, control, and the separation of built environments from ecological processes, are revealing their limits. This lecture proposes a different direction: one rooted in the spatial intelligence of territories shaped by centuries of adapting to water. 

The lecture presents a multi-scalar design proposal for the Ciénaga Grande de Santa Marta - Colombia's largest coastal wetland, a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, and the birthplace of Magical Realism where decades of infrastructure, monocultures, and extractive land use have severed the hydrological dynamics that once sustained both an extraordinary ecosystem and the amphibious communities that inhabit it. The project argues that restoring the Ciénaga Grande demands reasserting it as a metropolitan counter-landscape: a living commons whose amphibious spatial logics propose an alternative to the arid, mineral urbanism of the Colombian Caribbean, and an example of water-integrated urbanism increasingly relevant far beyond this territory. 

ABOUT THE LECTURERS

Juan Diego Martínez Otálvaro is an architect and urban and landscape designer whose work examines how landscape and infrastructure mediate the transformation of urban territories under global warming. He holds an Advanced Master in Urbanism, Landscape and Planning from KU Leuven, where he graduated Magna Cum Laude, and Bachelor of Architecture from Universidad Nacional de Colombia. He currently works with RUA on landscape urbanism projects in Vietnam, Cambodia and other contexts and over the past two years has collaborated with research groups at KU Leuven on landscape urbanism contributing to academic publications in progress. His thesis, “Amphibious Urbanisms: Reasserting the Ciénaga Grande as a Counter-Landscape in the Colombian Caribbean” proposes design strategies to restore the wetlands dynamics, reweaving its communities with water, and reasserting it as a living counter-landscape to the mineral urbanisms of the region.

Before joining academia, he spent over a decade practicing architecture and landscape urbanism in Colombia, leading multidisciplinary teams on large-scale public infrastructure. He collaborated on the competition, master plan and design of Parques del Río Medellín, and later coordinated the detailed design of its first construction phase. He also worked as landscape designer for Corredor Verde La Picacha, awarded Colombia’s best cycling-infrastructure project in 2019. His practice has centered on translating active-mobility and landscape corridor projects from territorial analysis into built work.

Santiago holds a Bachelor of Architecture from Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana in Medellín and an Advanced Master of Urbanism, Lanscape & Planning from KU Leuven in Belgium, where he graduated Summa Cum Laude. 

He is currently an Urban Design Studio and Design Media Fellow at Tulane University. His work explores how landscape and infrastructure can be integrated ad framerowks for addressing contemporary challenges, including global warming, environmental degradation, and social inequality. 

He is particularly interested in how landscape systems can inform processes of urban transformation and support more adaptive relationships between natural and built environments. His practice operates across Architecture, Landscape and Urbanism, with a focus on climate-responsive design and socio-ecological justice.

He has worked on projects across different scales in Colombia, Belgium, and Germany, ranging from architecture and public space to landscape regeneration and broader territorial strategies. His experience includes both professional practice and research-by-design, allowing him to explore the relationship between spatial design, ecological processes, and contemporary forms of urbanization. 

Alongside with his design practice, Santiago has worked as a research assitant at KU Leuven, contributing to projects addressing climate resilience, global warming, and socio ecological justice in diverse landscape contexts, including Vietnam, Cambodia, and Ecuador. 

Questions? Please reach out to Ben Neal at bneal1@tulane.edu.