At first glance, no building is visible. The streetscape is filled with fig trees, Queen palms, and monstera, comprising a thick layer of vegetation. After approaching the sidewalk, however, horizontal ribbons of graphite-colored steel and glass emerge near the top of the tree canopy. Behind a second layer of plants, at the corner of the city block, lies an expansive opening below these shifting layers of glass and metal. The afforested sidewalk cascades into the space below this structure, spilling into a large courtyard filled with cafe tables, benches, and planters.
Welcome to the Click Clack Hotel: a building enveloped by—and containing—a lush garden that serves as a popular public space within the lively Poblado district of Medellin. Designed by the local firm Plan: B Architects, the edifice has no entry doors or formal lobby; instead, its first floor is composed of restaurants, a cafe, an art gallery, and ample seating areas—all enveloped in green. A simple counter serving as a concierge station is the only visual indication of a hotel program. Although this is a well-regarded inn, locals view the Click Clack as less of a hotel than a destination for good food, culture, and relaxation.
Commissioned by the innovative developer Monkey Business SAS, the Click Clack represents a notable departure from the conventional hotel paradigm: a building designed for outsiders, isolated from the public. The fact that this radically permeable and inclusive structure is situated within what was once considered the “Murder Capital of the World” is nothing short of astonishing. Since the height of Colombian drug trafficking activity in 1991, Medellin’s crime rate has since diminished by 80% and its poverty level by 96%. The design and infrastructure renaissance led by Mayor Sergio Fajardo and other visionaries, which resulted in Medellin’s “City of the Year” award in 2013 by the Urban Land Institute, is an example for designers and planners worldwide.
Felipe and Federico Mesa, the fraternal founders of Plan:B Architects, have significantly contributed to Medellin’s dramatic design rebirth in their active practice. The Mesa brothers’ design manifesto is documented in their book Permeabilidad (Permeability, Mesa Editores, 2013). While Plan:B’s projects exemplify permeability as a literal strategy, creating intentional spatial and visible linkages between inside and outside, the architects also embrace innovative programmatic manifestations of this concept. “Permeability is not only a tectonic quality; it is also relevant to the functioning of biotic communities and social groups,” write the architects. “From this point of view, the amount of architectures we are interested in increases, because permeability sways from the porous and absorbent to a relational architecture, which is not isolated but agreed.”
The Click Clack Hotel owes its success to a visionary client—who sought to replace the model of a hermetic island for outsiders with an engaging destination for the public—and an architect who understood how to bring this vision to life. This marriage of programmatic and physical permeability is a common theme in Plan:B’s works, thanks to both the architects’ talents as well as their frequent partnerships with patrons seeking a bold future for Medellin and other Colombian cities.
Another Plan: B example is the Orchideorama, a voluminous shelter situated in the heart of Medellin’s Botanical Garden. As its name suggests, the project is a novel programmatic hybrid, serving as a horticultural exhibition hall as well as a space for concerts, weddings, exercise, gastronomical events, and many other activities. The structure consists of generously spaced, hollow “trees” clad in open wood slats. The hexagonal modular system enabled the architects to situate the phased project flexibly within a native forest without displacing existing foliage. Each modular tree “concentrates the technical installation network in the trunk, mixes the structure’s base with the growth of gardens or understory plants and defines a translucent canopy at the same height as the surrounding foliages,” explain the architects. “The regular and flexible perimeter geometry allows the orchideorama to comfortably adjust to the void left by the previous pavilion in the forest and restore the tissue.”
Defying programmatic expectations and eschewing disciplinary boundaries, these projects exemplify the creative convergence of architecture, landscape, and urbanism. These remarkable examples of environmental fusion design compel visitors to realize what is often missing in the built environment: creative connections between various human activities and local ecosystems. The Click Clack Hotel turns the traditional hotel inside-out, incorporating a directly accessible public garden and cultural hot spot as its central feature. The modular, facade-less structure of the Orchideorama represents an optimal nexus between the local ecosystem and human activities that can expand or contract as needs change. Both projects are teeming with plants, emphasizing the incorporation of local flora in their designs. In this way, the works serve as symbols of Medellin’s impressive efforts to rejuvenate its urban forest and attendant biodiversity, and the results include cleaner air, reduced urban heat island effect, and improved ecosystem health.
It is worth mentioning that these projects resulted from fortunate circumstances, including progressive clients, adequate resources, and public sentiment encouraging innovation. Unfortunately, this combination of factors often fails to materialize in building commissions elsewhere. Nevertheless, these examples offer a humbling challenge for designers and planners everywhere: if Plan:B and Medellin can make such significant strides in sustainable design innovation, and in a location hobbled by crime just a few decades ago, what limits similarly creative and ecologically responsible transformations in more stable places?
