Latest news with #Medellín
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Travel + Leisure
21-07-2025
- Travel + Leisure
This Is the No. 1 City in the World for Green Space—and It Has Tropical Weather, Tree-lined Corridors, and Giant Urban Parks
There's nothing like vacationing in a new city—but in between visits to museums and restaurants, it's nice to take a break and relax in the verdant peace of the outdoors. A new study from Time Out quizzed 18,500 people all over the world to determine which cities had the best green spaces, information that nature-loving travelers can use to plan their next trip. The survey found that one destination was resoundingly loved by participants—92 percent of locals in Medellín, Colombia, rated their green spaces and access to nature positively. Medellín enjoys toasty daytime temperatures thanks to its trade-wind tropical climate and is nicknamed "Ciudad de la Eterna Primavera" or the "City of Eternal Spring." There's definitely plenty of green space to love in Medellín, and spending time outdoors here doesn't require a trip outside of the city limits. However, its extensive amount of green space hasn't always been a reality for the city. The temperature in Medellín hovers between the 60s and 80s year-round, but the urban environment, concrete, and asphalt often made the heat feel more extreme. So, back in 2016, the city started a project called "green corridors," that sought to increase the amount of trees, shade, and foliage in Medellín. According to the British Broadcasting Corporation , 2.5 million plants and 880,000 trees were planted by 2021. All of that planting, in parks, vertical gardens, and walkways, helped cool and improve the air quality of the city. It also gave locals and visitors alike ample opportunities to spend time in nature without ever needing to leave the confines of the city. Parques del Río Medellín, a riverside network of parks, alone offers 71,800 square meters of outdoor space. There's also the city's botanical gardens, the ecological preserve at Parque Arví, the Natural Park Cerro El Volador—the largest in the Medellín metropolitan area, the Sculpture Park, and a host of other options. However, as the second largest city in Colombia (following the capital city of Bogotá), there's no shortage of reasons to visit Medellín, that don't require tying on your hiking boots. There's the attention-grabbing and ever-growing food scene, a vibrant LGBTQ+ community, a world-class coffee scene, and plenty of museums and art. Plus, the scenic small town of Guatapé, where you can climb rocks and hike to waterfalls, is just two hours away by car. If you are curious about the other cities that are well-regarded for green space, you can visit TimeOut's website to see the full list of rankings.
Yahoo
17-07-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
⏳ Atlético Nacional close to sealing a new signing
César Haydar, a former Junior defender who comes from Japan, will be a new reinforcement for the verdolaga team for the second semester. Atlético Nacional is very close to closing a new signing for the second semester. According to Pipe Sierra, the Colombian footballer César Haydar is already in Medellín to undergo medical examinations and sign his contract with the verdolaga team. Atlético Nacional has reached an agreement with Red Bull Bragantino from Brazil, the club that owns his rights, for a one-year loan with an option to buy the 24-year-old defender of Lebanese origin. Haydar, who made his debut in First Division football in March 2019 with the shirt of Junior de Barranquilla, comes from Kawasaki Frontale from Japan. In his career, he stands out for his journey in the Colombia U-18 and U-20 team, as well as a stint at Deportes Tolima. César Haydar would be the second reinforcement of Atlético Nacional after the signing of Uruguayan forward Facundo Batista, who has already been officially presented. This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇪🇸 here.
Yahoo
08-07-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
🚨 Boca agree deal with Atlético Nacional for Jorman Campuzano sale
This weekend, the appearance of Jorman Campuzano in Boca Juniors training sessions at the Ezeiza premises caused some surprise. The Colombian midfielder, who has a contract with Xeneize until June 2026, officially ended his loan at Atlético Nacional, where he played on loan since mid-2024, and presented himself to train with the Boca squad led by Miguel Ángel Russo. Advertisement For Verdolaga, it is a very important loss, since Campuzano was a key player in the team that achieved the League, Cup, and Supercup titles at the domestic level in the past season. Luckily for Atlético Nacional, Boca Juniors would have given in to their aspirations for Jorman Campuzano to stay in Medellín in the next season. Verbal agreement between Boca and Atlético Nacional According to information from Germán García Grova, the clubs reached an agreement for the transfer of Campuzano to Atlético Nacional. The green team would pay an amount of around $1.7 million for 100% of the 30-year-old defensive midfielder's rights. Advertisement If this news and figure are officially confirmed, Boca would have lowered their initial demands to reach an agreement. After his return to training this weekend, in Boca it was considered that he had no place in the team, and the club was willing to negotiate his departure. But according to Planeta Boca Juniors, Xeneize had rejected Nacional's initial offer, as it was lower than the purchase option stipulated in the loan, set at $2.5 million. This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇪🇸 here. 📸 Marcelo Endelli - 2024 Getty Images
Yahoo
04-07-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
🔥 Daniel Muñoz and Dávinson Sánchez trained with Nacional
Two Colombia National Team players worked out in Medellín before returning to their respective clubs in Europe. Dressed in green! Atlético Nacional has received very special visits in Guarne: Daniel Muñoz and Dávinson Sánchez, former players of the club, have participated in a training session in Medellín before traveling back to Europe to face the new season. Advertisement Muñoz, who plays for Crystal Palace in England, and Sánchez, currently at Galatasaray in Turkey, did gym work and also field movements at the facilities of the King of Cups. It was Atlético Nacional itself that uploaded the images to social media where Dani Muñoz is seen wearing team clothing, which led to fans asking for his return. Muñoz comes from a phenomenal season: he won a historic FA Cup title with Crystal Palace and will play in the next edition of the UEFA Europa League. Dávinson, meanwhile, was champion in Turkey and had a good season with Néstor Lorenzo's National Team. The team led by Javier Gandolfi did not manage to reach the grand final of the Liga BetPlay DIMAYOR 2025-I, although it remains in the running in the CONMEBOL Libertadores and has on the horizon its duel against São Paulo in the round of 16. Advertisement This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇪🇸 here.
The Guardian
03-07-2025
- General
- The Guardian
The enchanted car park: how a ruined multi-storey became a garden paradise loved by lizards and dog-walkers
Lilac-flowering creepers engulf an abandoned house on a street corner in Medellín, Colombia, spilling from the roof and smothering most of the upstairs windows. A giant fan palm is visible through one opening, while a knotty tangle of aerial roots cascades down to the pavement from another. Step through the doorway of this overgrown ruin, and you find not a scene of desolation and decay but a sleek steel frame holding up the crumbling facade, which forms an unusual entrance to an enchanting new public park. 'We behaved more like archaeologists than landscape architects,' says Edgar Mazo of Connatural, the firm behind the Parque Prado, in the working-class neighbourhood of Aranjuez. He leads me through a series of planted terraces; fountain grasses and trumpet trees sprout from where a derelict car park and abandoned homes once stood. 'You dig up the concrete, water gets into the ground, vegetation grows up, and the people come back,' he adds, speaking through a translator. 'That's natural regeneration.' In recent decades, Medellín has been widely celebrated for its astonishing urban transformation. In the 2000s, it went from being one of the most dangerous cities on the planet, riven by murderous drug cartels, to a case study in the miraculous peace-bringing powers of architecture and landscape. Sergio Fajardo, the son of an architect who served as Medellín's charismatic mayor from 2004 to 2008, was hailed for sprinkling the city's poorest neighbourhoods with dazzling new libraries, stadiums and swimming pools. These determinedly 'iconic' projects were enthusiastically feted on the pages of glossy design magazines, and their stories recounted in keynotes at international conferences. Impoverished hillsides were connected to a new metro system with an elegant web of cable cars and outdoor escalators, while parks dotted with expressive architect-designed canopies sprang up across the city. The dramatic fall in crime during Fajardo's term was largely credited to this vision of 'social urbanism', and the increase in the amount of public space per citizen. But the Medellín miracle has since lost some of its sparkle. Take the Biblioteca España, one of the flagship projects, designed by Colombian star architect Giancarlo Mazzanti. It stands as a striking cluster of chiselled concrete boulders, rising from the hillside in the formerly no-go barrio of Santo Domingo. But it has been shuttered since 2015, due to structural defects. Or look at the outdoor escalators, which snake their way up the slopes of Comuna 13, one of the most notorious gangland neighbourhoods. Built to improve access for residents of the steep hillside, they have now become an overrun tourist attraction for Pablo Escobar-themed slum tours (which are often run in cahoots with the gangs). With more than 25,000 visitors riding the moving stairs here each week, locals barely have space to use them. Mazo's work takes a markedly different approach from the 00s penchant for spectacle. When he was asked to look at the sloping half-hectare site in Aranjuez, which was home to a rundown car park and six boarded-up houses, abandoned for more than a decade, there was an existing plan to raze everything and replace it with a park traversed by a big zigzagging ramp. It looked like a hangover from the earlier lust for shape-making, something that might photograph well from a helicopter. Instead, Mazo and his team decided to keep most of what was already there. Almost 70% of the material on-site remains, albeit in a new form. Walls and floor slabs were chiselled from the two-storey parking structure, and the rubble used to fill the basements of the houses, with soil packed on top. The buildings' roof timbers were reclaimed and used to make benches, while the landscape was shaped in such a way that rainwater is retained, meaning that no artificial irrigation is needed. The team even collected seeds from the plants that had sprung up on the plot, so they could be scattered around the new park after the project's construction – allowing the natural colonisers back in. The project was built during the pandemic for a cost of just $1.5m (£1.1m), and the lockdowns allowed time for the plants to establish, without the threat of being trampled by visitors. Five years on, the planting has reached a level of maturity that makes this urban oasis seem like it's always been there – a rare fruition of the Covid-era prophecies of nature reclaiming the city. The result is a beguiling place, where the sloping topography is mediated not by a great switchback ramp, but by a series of stepped terraces and slopes that form little outdoor rooms. The former car park's concrete frame makes for an imposing armature at the centre of the park, supporting a raised steel walkway and framing a series of semi-enclosed spaces beneath it. Reclaimed bricks and stacked roof tiles serve as retaining walls, creating a rugged backdrop to lush clumps of grasses and palms. Gabion cages filled with rocks and rubble line water retention ponds, and provide platforms for seating. A sandy clearing down below makes space for ballgames and events, while park-goers can watch the action from the terraced decks above, and enjoy a grandstand view across the sprawling city and its seven hills. 'When people first colonised this valley,' says Mazo, 'they used to climb up to the top of the hills to communicate with each other. The park now becomes part of that system, giving people an elevated view to connect with others.' Crucially, there's a space for everyone here – from elevated walkways, to quiet shrub-lined reading areas, to seating tucked away from prying eyes. The sense of fragmentation, as well as the level changes, allow different social groups to coexist. On a Tuesday afternoon, most of these different compartments have their own distinct visitors. A student sits cross-legged on a bench by a giant monstera plant, drawing, while a couple canoodle on the deck above him. A solo pensioner takes in the view from the top, enjoying the shade of a kapok tree. Dog-walkers come and go, while a pair of middle-aged guys get stoned in one corner, not very well hidden behind fluffy fronds of purple grass. Parque Prado was one of the pilot projects of the city's Plan de Renaturalización, an initiative launched in 2016 to introduce 120 neighbourhood parks (20 of which Mazo was commissioned to design) and 30 green corridors, ripping up asphalt and concrete to improve groundwater infiltration, and planting urban orchards to mitigate the effects of climate crisis. In some areas, temperatures have reduced by as much as 3C, while several species of birds, lizards and frogs have returned, which hadn't been seen in the city for decades. There have been harder-to-measure social impacts, too. 'Some local residents were initially worried about the park,' says Mazo. 'The area had become known for drug addicts and prostitution, and they thought it would only make things worse.' The opposite has happened. By creating space for different walks of life to mingle, 'people are mixing here without any problems', he says. 'Some people assume that a completely flat, open surface with no vegetation means you can have more surveillance,' he adds. 'But if you have different shapes, levels and conditions, people can identify with the space, feel more comfortable and take care.' Local residents have taken such ownership over the park that they voluntarily clean it up and have started doing some guerrilla gardening – planting seeds for the space to take on a life of its own.
