On the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of Empresas Públicas de Medellín (public companies of Medellín) the entity donated eighty million dollars to the Town Hall for the construction of ten public schools and the refurbishment of the 132 existing ones. The site assigned for the new schools was located in the decaying areas of the city, which suffer high levels of violence and are characterized by the inexistence of a harmonious social fabric and the lack of basic infrastructures.

Aiming to make up for the scarcity of cultural facilities, the program of the Las Mercedes School was drawn up in collaboration with the members of the community. One of the objectives was, of course, to make it possible for students to use the facilities during the school year, but also to make these available to the rest of the community during vacation periods or weekends. The building has a main floor with multipurpose spaces for different kinds of activities for the parents of students, a roof terrace that performs as a viewpoint and a ground floor with administration areas and laboratories. For their part, the classrooms are in the center of the school, protected from the road by a gentle drop in the terrain...[+]