Colegio Técnico Profesional Pacto del Jocote en módulo educativo del Parque Tecnológico Ambiental de Alajuela

Proyecto de graduación (Licenciatura en Arquitectura y Urbanismo) Instituto Tecnológico de Costa Rica, 2017.The project “Vocational Technical High School Pacto del Jocote in the educational section of the Alajuela´s Environmental Technology Park”, is an architectural design that is located in the province of Alajuela, district of San Jose, in the area known as La Plywood. It´s originated in a project of the Municipality of Alajuela, which involves the creation of an Environmental Technology Park, located on a 16.5 acres’ land, acquired in 2010, especially to build a wastewater treatment plant for the Central Region of Alajuela. To give a better use to that land, the same municipality prepared a Master Plan, which was named Environmental Technology Park of Alajuela. This park consists on seven sections with a variety of facilities related to technological and environmental issues. The proposal project will focus on the educational section, which includes the facilities for the Vocational Technical High School an auditorium and a natural amphitheater. It´s important to mention that close to where the land is located, are also some major educational institutions such as the Instituto Nacional de Aprendizaje (INA) and the High School of Pacto del Jocote. Also is important to mention, this public High School of Pacto del Jocote does not have its own building, reason why most of the time the students use the Community Public Auditorium as a classroom under poor conditions, the main limitation of this institution to build their new facilities is the land. Reason why the Municipality of Alajuela donated the land, to build the educational section in the Park. Initially, this graduation project was supposed to include a specific architectural blueprint for this educational center, but before starting with the design proposal, we had a meeting with the Director of the Pacto del Jocote´s High School, however, there was no motivation for this proposal and we were informed that the municipal property where the Environmental Technology Park is located, is mortgaged, was purchased with a loan, reason why this land can´t be donated to the Ministerio de Educacion Publica (M.E.P.). With all this situations, changes in the present project were necessary because the main target was not anymore the High School instead the new proposal was for the Vocational Technical High School. In this particular case, this is a challenge design considering the place where the School is located and for the kind of courses that the School will offer, this will be an out of the line for M.E.P. regulations for this kind of School in the country. Therefore, the new design includes a “hybrid” blueprint of the Vocational Technical College using the M.E.P–DIEE regulations and also using INA courses recommendations, in order to create an environmental and sustainability facilities and according to the needs detected by the INA, and not forgetting the peculiar area were the facilities are located. Finally, the proposal is characterized by being self - sustaining, since it is designed to sell services to the Environmental Technology Park of the Municipality of Alajuela, including full administration, maintenance, areas for the students to practice and eventual sale of external recycling services and others. This makes a big difference in the final proposal considering that there is no Vocational Technical High School in the country with these characteristicsInstituto Tecnológico de Costa Rica. Escuela de Arquitectura y Urbanismo