CONICET | Buscador de Institutos y Recursos Humanos

Argentine cities are characterized by forming a macro-cephalic system both regionally, nationally, and regarding the internal organization within each urban center. This situation consolidates a structure in constant tension between an hiper-densified/collapsed center and the functionally-stunted periphery that spreads on the territory but depends on the city center to function at all.This research focuses on the current situation of the first suburban expansion in the city of Córdoba -the second city in importance after Buenos Aires. These neighborhoods originated as peripheral developments in 1960-1970, but later, after many other increasingly distant suburban expansions, they were consolidated as the connecting space between the current periphery and the hiper-densified city center.This privileged location within the urban structure and their urban and environmental quality are opposed to a process of functional obsolescence of their buildings, that no longer meet the current demands of the housing market, causing a gradual population drain and impoverishment of the built heritage. Any renewal intervention is hampered by land use regulations, perpetuating the model of low-density residential area.However, the tension between the scenario brought by land use regulations and the strategic potential -not assumed- of this neighbourhoods is solved through spontaneous (and informal) micro-densification processes carried out by the landowners, middle class inhabitants of the neighborhood: Recycling obsolete buildings or taking advantage of vacant buildable area of each plot, the number of functional units per plot is increased, maintaining the scale of existing fabric. Complementary uses are incorporated enriching the urban structure, increasing profitability through individual micro-investments. Ultimately, they rebuild the social fabric, preventing population drain and offering attractive products for new inhabitants. Access to housing is provided to socio-economic groups that have been left out of public housing policies and housing market: the middle-class young adults.The original socio-cultural structure in these neighborhoods is homogeneous - Argentine typical middle class. The built fabric is inspired by the garden suburbs defined by Unwin and zoning regulations that impose exclusively housing, and the one family-one house-one plot model put into the spanish-colony type grid. The resulting fabric is characteristic of Argentine suburbia: garden suburbs but with strong Mudejar influence. This produces a compact fabric, where the separation between public space -the street, the square, the market- and private space is well defined, embodying a continuous limit that defines the blocks into the grid, creating a concrete boundary between the street and the core of every block. The micro-densification means one radical change of this model. The built fabric becomes more porous, allowing access and occupation of the interior of the block. The public space penetrates to the core of the block itself, allowing acces to the new functional units: a new public space in domestic scale, a functional hybrid is generated, dissolving the filter between the public and private space.The spatial complexity is simultaneous to the functional complexity. New housing types appear, defined by new family structures, social mobility, new domestic spaces and home working. Simultaneously, new features are incorporated into the residential fabric, with new workspaces, offices, studios and retail shops that diversify the offer of services in the neighborhood.This research explores the potential of micro-densification as an innovative strategy to revitalize these neighborhoods, and this process potential to generate sustainable and efficient habitat, allowing access to housing for the urban middle class. It is also a review of the residential suburb paradigm that persists in the current Argentine cities. This emergent process of revitalization increases the the functional and socio-economic resilience, both within the neighbourhood and the city itself: The resilience of the urban structure increases with decentralization, increasing the efficiency of each one of the urban sectors, and redistributing the charges in the structure. The tension between different city areas -the center, the periphery-, is reduced by allowing the consolidation of intermediate sectors that articulate the urban fragments together.At the same time, bring to consideration several relevant issues:?The dynamic condition of the urban system, the changing role of urban areas over time and the tension generated within the system through this process.?Small producers of habitat, that even with little weight in the decision-making system, have great potential to transform the city.?Processes outside the traditional housing market that can transform the territory.?Emergent processes as self-regulation tools of the urban city. The study of emergent processes gives the opportunity to develop new methods of intervention and revitalization of these neighbourhoods based on their potential. Emergent and informal micro-densification processes could be seen as a symptom or sign of crisis within the city, or as an attempt by the system to regulate itself and adapt to new situations. Urban planners can choose to recognize this process as an anomaly given its informality or as a response against a scenario of unsolved tension; a form of self-organization seeking a new equilibrium and the definition of a new paradigm of orden from the periphery. The city is a complex phenomenon, so the study methodologies and intervention must respond to this dynamic: Planning should be flexible, adaptable, and assume the uncertainty of urban development as an opportunity. The inclusion of diversity on the micro-scale contribute to increase complexity and resilience of the system, enabling more efficient and sustainable development of the city.

enviar mensaje