Greening Villa 20: Community-led Climate Upgrading in Buenos Aires

Villa 20’s Urban Lab integrates climate action into the broader neighborhood upgrading program that has been transforming this historically marginalized area of southern Buenos Aires since 2016. Built on deep community participation, the initiative introduces nature-based solutions, environmental education, and local climate monitoring as key components of social and physical regeneration.

Since 2022, the Transformative Urban Coalitions (TUC) Urban Lab has co-created and implemented a portfolio of actions, shaded public spaces, rain gardens, tree planting, murals, and neighborhood climate sensors, bringing together residents, schools, NGOs, universities, and local government. By blending technical solutions with collective learning, Villa 20’s Urban Lab demonstrates that climate resilience can emerge from within communities through collaboration, awareness, and design that puts people and nature at the center.

The neighborhood faces overlapping challenges of poverty, overcrowding, and exposure to heat and flooding. However, it also has a strong history of community organization and legal recognition through Law 5705/2016, which initiated its integral upgrading process. The Environmental Board, created in 2018, and the Urban Lab, launched in 2022, have turned Villa 20 into a living space for co-designing climate solutions and testing inclusive, data-driven urban governance.

Implementation in Villa 20 followed a clear principle: climate action had to be inseparable from socio-spatial upgrading. Rather than creating new structures, the Urban Lab embedded itself within existing governance arrangements, aligning green interventions with ongoing public works and community priorities.

Step 1: Governance integration and a place-based coalition

The Urban Lab joined the neighborhood Environmental Board, creating a shared platform where public agencies, cooperatives, and residents could coordinate technical, social, and environmental inputs. This enabled collective decision-making and reduced fragmentation across initiatives.

Step 2: Shared understanding through co-design and site mapping

Participatory workshops and neighborhood walks with residents, cooperatives, and city experts identified priority sites affected by heat stress and drainage challenges. Simple mapping tools helped select pilot locations with high visibility, feasibility, and learning potential.

Step 3: Implementation:

 Quick wins and demonstration projects: Early, small-scale interventions—planting corridors, recycled flowerbeds, and shaded benches—were delivered by neighborhood cooperatives to build momentum. In parallel, a larger joint effort focused on two flagship Nature-based Solutions sites: the renovation of Plaza de las Risas and the green transformation of School No. 11’s yard, integrating native planting, permeable surfaces, and rainwater harvesting.

Climate literacy, skills, and evidence: Training workshops on recycling, composting, hydroponics, and green maintenance strengthened local skills, while the school curriculum embedded environmental learning. Murals co-designed by students and residents reinforced a shared climate narrative. A micro-network of climate sensors complemented residents’ observations, helping identify heat islands and track the impact of new greenery.

Step 4: Learning by doing and local green jobs

All works were executed by neighborhood cooperatives, generating paid employment and technical capacity. Ongoing stewardship—maintenance and data collection by residents—ensures continuity, ownership, and accountability.

This iterative, participatory model positions Villa 20 as a prototype for climate-integrated upgrading, demonstrating how low-cost, locally driven solutions can strengthen resilience in vulnerable urban contexts

A strong and diverse partnership sustains the initiative:

• Government:  Institute of Housing of the City of Buenos Aires (IVC), Office of Climate Change, Office of Data Generation of the Directorate General of Urban Anthropology
• Community: Neighborhood cooperatives (MAXU, FIS, EUT, FAR, Terrazas del Cultivo), schools, and early childhood centers
• Academia and research: IIED-América Latina, CIHE-FADU-UBA, UNU-EHS, and University of Sheffield.
• International support: the Transformative Urban Coalitions (TUC) project (International Climate Initiative (IKI) funded), IIED, CAF (Environmental Sustainability Program).

Climate awareness is fostered through hands-on, creative, and family-oriented activities:

• Environmental Circuit with educational signage and wayfinding
• School and neighborhood workshops on recycling and native planting
• Climate murals co-created with students and artists
• “Environmental Memory Archive” capturing community stories and knowledge
• Storytelling through a TUC-produced documentary, spotlighting an urban lab member's perspective to amplify "voices from the ground".

The initiative blends international cooperation with local investment:

• US$100 million CAF loan supporting upgrading of Villa 20 and two other settlements.
• Transformative Urban Coalitions (TUC) project, supported by the International Climate Initiative (IKI), providing facilitation, capacity-building, and pilot actions through the Urban Lab approach.
• In-kind contributions of plants, tools, and workforce from local partners and cooperatives.

The Villa 20 Urban Lab is delivering tangible environmental, social, and institutional results:

Physical transformation: The planting of 175 trees, 110 vines, 2430 bushes and 1285 m2 of regenerated green areas have visibly improved microclimates, reduced surface temperatures, and enhanced the quality of public space. Residents report cooler streets and more comfortable outdoor areas for children and families.      

Institutional innovation: IVC has started to incorporate climate criteria, particularly NbS, into its design and tender guidelines for the remaining of the Villa 20 upgrading process. This is expected to influence future upgrading projects across Buenos Aires, mainstreaming the lessons from Villa 20 into citywide practice. The Office of Climate change has reported wanting to expand the monitoring network in other neighborhoods. The Offices of Data Generation and Climate change are progressing in signing a collaboration agreement with the city of Rosario to strengthen microclimate monitoring in low-income and informal settlements.

Social empowerment: Through participatory design and local execution, more than 100 residents, many of them women and youth, have gained skills in green construction and maintenance. This has created both employment and a new sense of community stewardship.

Educational and cultural change: Environmental learning in School No. 11 and public murals have reframed the meaning of climate action, showing that resilience can be expressed through art, education, and daily practices.

Data and evidence: Climate sensors are now collecting real-time data on temperature and humidity, informing new city planning and validating residents’ observations. This scientific dimension has strengthened community advocacy for further green investments.    

Barriers, Challenges and Failures

Integration in a live upgrading program revealed coordination frictions and power asymmetries:

• Scheduling & technical constraints: Some sites unfeasible or redesigned due to utilities’ requirements; tensions between immediate social needs and technical limits. 
• Political pluralism: Decentralized, coalition-based execution required trust-building to avoid duplication and align methods. 
• Sustaining agency engagement: Engagement of government agencies has fluctuated over time, yet involvement has also diversified, with a core group of technical teams remaining committed to the vision and to working collaboratively within a broader coalition of actors.

Despite these challenges, the iterative process enhanced capacity and revealed that inclusive, adaptive collaboration is essential for sustainable results.

Co-designed solutions that deliver multiple benefits, generate income opportunities, and respond to the needs of different groups are essential. By recognising what each individual and organisation can contribute, and helping them find a meaningful role in the process, the approach ensures broad and sustained engagement.

Through exchanges with the city of Buenos Aires, Rosario has begun integrating Nature-based Solutions in Barrio Moreno, a neighborhood also undergoing upgrading, alongside the installation of a local climate monitoring system. This has strengthened collaboration across cities and municipal departments, renewed community participation—particularly among residents interested in working with nature—and fostered new local alliances.

The model is replicable across Latin American and Global South cities facing informality, inequality, and environmental stress. By combining low-cost NbS with education, data, and governance reform, urban upgrading programmes can become engines of climate transition.

Villa 20 ultimately demonstrates that resilience grows from within communities, when local knowledge aligns with institutional commitment and green space is treated as a right rather than a privilege.