Santiago de Cuba is the site of the oldest house in Latin America. Villa half a millennium, whose historic center is a national monument and aspiring Heritage and now seeks new heights.

About 30 thousand new homes need to Santiago de Cuba to regain its housing stock .A new project commitment to make it faster and with fewer resources. It is available to retake interstices in the historic center of the town to build a modern city from its more traditional spaces.
This idea rescues background: buildings from the first half of the twentieth century coexist in harmony with traditional buildings. Although the usual practice has focused the construction of new homes in outlying areas of the city, about 15 areas of the historic center are part of a special revitalization plan.
In small spaces occupied housing in poor or an idle institution today a building that will multiply the habitability in the founding rings, as we explained Miguel Roy, specialist projects Company Project of Popular Power projects:
"Increase the population density of 300-1200 people per hectare, with the advantage that also do not have to add urban infrastructure: when implants the building already has networks, roads, urban transport, shop at the corner ... Everything that he had to put to that new development does not have to build it because it already has the city. "
But is not Santiago de Cuba a colonial city?

Gisela Mayo Gómez, Director of the Master Plan of the Office of the Curator of the City, says there is no contradiction here: "New projects implemented by these construction companies need to be on a respect for regulations. We do not want mimicry, or copy an architectural style that is no longer present; but to develop contemporary actions, in a contemporary world, where a generation can realize their label, but that seal is respect for the architectural value there. "
For these reasons, the Office of the Curator of the City, in conjunction with the Provincial Directorate of Physical Planning and Business Project of Popular Power, to design specific projects that also put the local production of construction materials in value more appropriate for the characteristics of the new enclaves.
Santiago de Cuba is well inserted into international trends from the concept of urban resilience. A sustainable bet that the profile of a modern city such as traditional redesigns.