Responses by Adoratorio.

Background: Proyecto Zacamil is a pioneering regenerative placemaking initiative by the nonprofit educational organization CMS Foundation and the government of El Salvador. The initiative is born from a radical belief that art can actively change the way we inhabit, perceive and transform a place—and with it, the lives of the people who call it home. Historically associated with organized crime and gang activity, the San Salvador neighborhood of Zacamil presented a clear challenge to the project: to rehabilitate the neighborhood through a combination of urban, landscape and artistic interventions.

The Colonia Zacamil website was created to document and showcase this transformation through an immersive digital experience. At its core is a freely explorable interactive map, where users can move through the neighborhood, discover its past and present, and explore each of the murals that now adorn its buildings. Through the Watch Series section, the story of the initiative—and, most importantly, that of the local community—unfolds through an episodic documentary series. The films are complemented by episode breakdowns and additional historical context across the Art, Landscape and Urban sections of the site.

Design core: The site’s core feature is undoubtedly its 3-D interactive map, which allows users to freely explore the Zacamil neighborhood. Through a simple interface, they can move between its past and present appearance, as well as experience the neighborhood at night.

The overall design language was heavily influenced by the art direction developed for this central element of the experience. We wanted to create something that felt familiar, tactile and tangible, while retaining the sense of a place that is still evolving, a work in progress rather than a finished object. This led us to a visual language combining watercolor textures with ink-pen strokes. The subtle wiggle effect applied to WebGL elements, together with the hand-drawn quality of details such as trees and vegetation, reinforces this feeling and gives the digital environment a sense of imperfection, movement and life.

Favorite details: As is often the case with immersive experiences, the website is filled with small details that are easy to overlook individually but fundamental to the experience as a whole.

One of our favorites is the past-present transition, which shows users how Colonia Zacamil looked until only a few years ago: gray, frequently without electricity and characterized by a stark sense of inaccessibility. Switching to the present reveals a completely different atmosphere: vibrant and colorful with spaces for locals to gather and run their businesses, for children to play, and for the community to feel safe.

Another detail we particularly love is the audio that accompanies users throughout the experience: a mixtape of sounds and music recorded directly in Colonia Zacamil. It brings a layer of the real neighborhood into its digital counterpart and makes the experience feel much more alive.

Finally, there are the murals, which act as the central protagonists of the experience. By selecting one, users are brought face to face with the artwork and can discover the story behind it, its artist and a behind-the-scenes video documenting its creation.

Challenges: Being part of an incredibly vast initiative involving many different stakeholders, from the Salvadoran government and CMS Foundation to the local community. Alongside everything that comes with a publicly funded project, one of the greatest challenges was deciding how to frame such a complex story: what to show, what to prioritize and ultimately how to tell it. Rather than simply documenting the physical transformation of Zacamil, we wanted the experience to communicate the human dimension behind it. We are extremely proud of where we landed, thanks both to a strong shared vision and to the constant support, knowledge and participation of the local community and the members of the Foundation.

Navigation structure: From the beginning, the idea was to give users freedom to explore rather than forcing them through a predefined narrative. We wanted to create a living, breathing interactive map where people could wander through Zacamil, encounter artworks and new interventions, and gradually discover the transformation taking place across the neighborhood.

At the same time, we wanted to give particular prominence to one of the project’s most valuable pieces of content: the documentary series. Its production quality and thoughtful narrative offer a different perspective on Zacamil, enabling viewers to move beyond the physical transformation of the neighborhood and encounter the people who live there: their stories, livelihoods and everyday lives. The navigation therefore balances these two ways of discovering Zacamil: exploring the place freely or following the stories of the people who inhabit it.