Elsa Mahecha Parra. Colombian architect. She practiced architecture for more than 30 years between Colombia and the Netherlands as a designer, teacher and researcher.
biographical synthesis
He was born in Bogotá , Colombia in 1940 . He studied at Colegio Helvetia, a private and liberal school where arts and culture were predominant.
Trajectory
In 1959 she began to study architecture at the National University , where there were still few women studying and where she was the only student in all the subjects she studied during her studies. She graduated in 1965 and in 1966 she was summoned to be part of the team of the Planning Office of the National University of Colombia in Bogotá , then directed by the architect Luz Amorocho . She had three commissions there: the Museum of Natural Sciences (1968-69), the Camilo Torres student residences (1969-71) -in collaboration with the architect Carlos Martínez Silva- and the Museum of Art (1970-73)-with the architect Alberto Estrada.
In 1970 he decided to seek scholarship opportunities abroad and went to the Netherlands . Back in Colombia from 1971 to 1973 , she joined the Territorial Credit Institute (ICT) where the directors of the design workshop were Emesé Ijasz de Murcia and Cecilia Álvarez Pereira. It is there where she has a first contact and falls in love with urban design in social housing projects.
He leaves Colombia and returns to the Netherlands. She joins the Delft University of Technology as a guest workshop professor. She developed projects for the remodeling of small-scale urban spaces such as sidewalks, corners and stairways, which involved a lot of interdisciplinary work with urban designers, landscapers, public employees and the beneficiary community.
From 1992 to 2000 he returned to Colombia and taught workshop classes at the National University. In 2003 she ended her professional career.