Public Space in the Fragmented City by Flavio Janches

Flavio Janches

Public Space in the Fragmented City Strategy for Socio-Physical Urban Intervention in Marginalized Communities

Public Space in the Fragmented City

Janches, Flavio Public space in the fragmented city : strategy for socio-physical urban intervention in marginalized communities. - 1a ed. - Buenos Aires: Nobuko, 2012. 160 p. : il. ; 22x22 cm. ISBN 978-987-584-399-8 1. Urbanismo. I. TĂtulo CDD 711 Copyright

ÂŠ 2012 F. Janches

All rights reserved. No part of the material protected by this copyright notice may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the author. Designed by Fontana DiseĂąo This book is using Palestina typefaces. Printed in Argentina.

Flavio Janches

Public Space in the Fragmented City Strategy for socio-physical urban intervention in marginalized communities

2005 â &#x201E;2010

Many people made this work possible.

To Professor Jurgen Rosemann, not

exploring together the reality of the

I would like to thank them for their

only for his important advice but also

neighborhood,

support:

for his encouragement during the research process.

To the Municipality of Avellaneda Mayors Baldomero Alvarez and Jorge

To Diego Sepulveda, for his help and

Ferraresi, and the professionals of the

deep involvement with this work.

Public Works and Social Inclusions departments:

To Andrea Peresthu, for been my friend

Magdalena Sierra, Ariel Lambezat, Gerardo Lopez Arrojo, Felipe Miranda,

To Susanne Pietsch, Jolai van Vergt,

Edgardo Peralta, Eduardo Hagopian

Vivianne Wang, Sari Tunas, and

y Maria Marta Perez, for sharing

Hetty van der Linden for their worm

with me their ongoing Villa Tranquila

friendship during my cold days in the

Urban Development Plan and for their

Netherlands.

physical and social coordination of the playspaces construction process.

To Mieke Bello, Ton Worten, Carl van Eykelenburg and Annelies van

To Juan Carlos Angelome for sharing

Eenennaam for believing in the project

with me all his knowledge and

and giving the opportunity to build the

experience in the conflict of urban

Playspace Foundation.

marginality and in the studio ares.

To Merilee Grindle and the David

To the community of Villa Tranquila

Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University

To Leslie MacColman , Jorge

for their support of the Harvard

Fondebrider and Hayley Henderson for

Studio in Buenos Aires and of

their help in the edition and translation

research during my days as Fellow

of the work.

in drclas. To my friend and partner Ricardo To the Graduate School of Design at

Blinder.

Harvard University, John Beardsley and Max Rohm and the Group of

To my wife Nora, my daughter Julia

students of the Non Formal Buenos

and my son Bruno, for their patience

Aires design studio 2005 for the time

and love.

To Nora, Julia and Bruno To my father,

The objective of the urban project is therefore to challenge this tendency of segregation by promoting through its results the integration of relegated areas and populations. This publication will survey the problem of urban marginalization by one of its more critical expressions in the contemporary city: the slums. The book aims to define an urban design strategy for the integration of those settlements, which enables policymakers and communities to find solutions for the conflict improving these communitiesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; quality of life. The book presents an urban project approach, which was driven by a series of concerns about the permanent problem of marginality. It contributes to the debate on possibilities of architecture and urbanism to provide planned related solutions for social and spatial integration in different parts of the world.

Foreword

by Alejandro Echeverri

Interview

by John Beardsley and Christian Werthmann

Chapter Q

Public Space

Chapter QQ

Problem Statement

Chapter QQQ

Theoretical Frame

Chapter QR

Methodological Considerations

Chapter R

Practical Experience

122 Interview Appendix

Putting Into Practice Users And Satisfaction Interviews.

Foreword

Alejandro Echeverri Architect, Director of urbam, Centro de Estudios Urbanos y Ambientales, Universidad eafit

The physical forms of a city are a visible metaphor for the society which inhabits it and, in the same way, society places its attention on the exercise of urban practices as a powerful tool for transformation. The narrative presented by Flavio Janches shows the conditions of segregation, discrimination, marginality and isolation which accompany the urban dynamics of Latin America. Wherever there is a city, there are really two cities, two opposing conditions which must urgently be connected, integrated and articulated. It is also urgent to share tools to achieve this end. This is a well known situation but the results of the experience in Villa Tranquila offer a beautiful hope for change. In this framework, the text highlights the value of public space as the best niche for carrying out such work. Public space is a meeting place and a place which can help overcome other deficiencies in housing quality. In this way, interventions in public space not only change social dynamics but the very lives of the people who use it. The aesthetic and functional qualities of a meeting place have positive effects on the relationships created there. Words like beauty, enjoyment, fun and tranquility penetrate the language of the people who make use of these places. The mixture of social participation and specific aspects of the project enrich the discussion about the possibilities of architecture and urbanism. The experience narrated in this book systematizes and important methodological contribution in terms of investigation/ action, opening the door for an alternative approach to city interventions, introducing a new perspective on the relationship between inhabitants and their environment, making it possible for architectural projects to materialize and represent the values of a communityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s experiences. The collective construction of a vision which later took the form of a park strengthens this message further: involving the community in the design of public spaces helps them become places where community values are not only materialized but also strengthened.

As an architect and as a citizen, reading this book from Medellin is even more powerful. Today my city is enjoying the results of an intense process of change related to the idea that we have denominated Social Urbanism, with the adaptation of streets, the construction of parks, libraries and transportation systems for marginalized sectors. This process of transformation had its origins in academic inquiry. The northern part of the city, its marginalized sectors, became the object of attention in schools of architecture and their conclusions nourished change. Academia served as a seed for the process of transformation, which was also supported by deep political commitment to integration and equity. This text is yet another example of one unquestionable fact: the university is an important place to study reality and construct solutions to common problems; it provides a vital voice amidst the crowd which calls urgently for urbanistic transformations to generate new realities. The social, environmental, economic and political impact derived from a holistic urbanistic intervention merits detailed study, in order to inspire future interventions. This is the greatest contribution of the text presented here. When Latin America begins to share its diverse experiences, the force of this message will only grow. All people should have the chance to dream. Dream that they will have a better city in which they can feel proud and unique. Dream that they will have the best public facilities, the best park or the best means of transport. Dreaming is about generating pride and building self-esteem. That dreams become reality is a question of equity and justice. The construction of a city in which citizens can dream is the best way to promote better citizenship; as the new city is built, in its reflection new inhabitants also come to be.

Interview

Flavio Janches Interview excerpt from Christian Werthmann ÂŤLandscape Operations in the Nonformal CityÂť (Draft Title) forthcoming 2012, Princeton Architectural Press

— When did you start working in Villas, and why? fj: We started to work in the slums, or trying to understand the slums, after the Argentinean economic crisis in 2001. We started to research the conflict in the university, its urban condition, how they have been created, how they are surviving the economic crisis, where are the opportunities for urban transformation, background in other experiences, etc. — Was it a matter of architects – you as designers – trying to find work for yourselves? Or was it a response to the conditions in the slums themselves? fj: I think it was not only “we” as designers, but also as teachers and researchers trying to find answers for the conflict. — Was it apparent to everyone that the slums were growing, or was it the same conditions, but – fj: It was not only because the slums were growing, one of the main problems at that time was that the middle or lower-middle

class people started to loose jobs and because of that lost their houses. Sometimes the slum was the only alternative for them to find a place to live. — So the economic crisis made the presence of the slums and the conditions there more vivid in everyone’s minds. fj: Yes. It was possible to understand the conflict because the informality started to find in the city, their way for economical support, the cartoneros was the best example about how the informality and formality started to be social and physical interdependent. — How did you find your way to the Villa Tranquila, or why did you pick that particular region? fj: Two conditions are needed to choose a place. First a relationship with community members and second the tendency of the land, because it is essential to work in a place that is not under legal conflict and the third one is to have access to information

most of the time built by the municipality. We started our research in a slum in the north part of the metropolitan area of the Buenos Aires city, Villa los Floras. — Near the university. fj: It is not so far. We started to work in this place because was not so big and of course easy to understand its physical and social condition and because we could get into the place and to access to governmental information. Our second case study was Villa Tranquila in the Municipality of Avellaneda south of the Buenos Aires city. We choose to work in this place because a friend introduced us to the Mayor and this allows us to have access to a lot of information, already developed by the municipality, not only in terms of numbers or physical condition but also in terms of people, we could interact and meet many inhabitants of the neighborhood. — So the municipality already

had done a census and a map of the settlement. fj: Yes, because at that time and still today they were working on an infrastructure and housing project for the area, and of course for this they produced a lot of information. Another important condition was the opportunity that the place has in terms to be transformed, one because as we said, most of the land belongs to the municipality so was not under legal conflict, second there were places with chances to be transformed without moving people, and third because its manageable scale in terms of population and surface. — Speaking of your relationships with people, how did you arrange contacts in the community? Who were your contacts inside the Villa Tranquila? fj: Our first contact, of course, was the municipality. We started through the municipality to the people. Social workers, planners, people who were working there introduced us to the community. From here

we started to meet a lot of people and NGO institutions that give us new information more related with their everyday way to produce their urban environment. — What sort of organizations were your contacts in the community? fj: We met people that were leaders of areas, religious groups, clubs, comedors, etc. — Was your intent to generate a whole range of large-scale urban design strategies, or was it more to focus on public space? Or both? fj: The integration of the people into the city is a very big issue that we want to work with. — Physical and social integration? fj: Both. — So the public space becomes emblematic of an effort to integrate groups within the community but also to integrate the community with the

surrounding city. FJ: We have a general strategy to go deeply into three levels of social relationship. One is the relationship between the formal city and the nonformal city, so we find places and programs at the edge of the slum that can break the barrier between both. The other one is to distribute in the neighborhood places and programs that can break the barriers between the existing internal fragmentations. And the third component we wanted to develop was a very network of very small public spaces that were related to small groups or families helping them to built their own community environment — You actually involved people in the community in identifying the spaces but also in preliminary design work, didn’t you? fj: Yes. To choose a place first we looked it as part of the urban strategy. This gave us some information in a big scale according to its opportunity to break internal or external barriers, of connections, access,

etc. From here we worked with the people who lives on and next to the place, because they will not only use it but also they will manage its everyday conflict. So we show them some drawings, ideas, and then they gave us comments changing our proposal in terms of adapting, adding or neglecting our ideas. — So you gave the children cameras and asked them to photograph where they played and how they played? And that helped generate the design? fj: Yes. At that time we were trying to find economical support for the project with Henk Doll from Rotterdam. They proposed this participation project. Alijd van Doorn was the one who organize the aims of this activity; they made a similar activity in a neighborhood of Rotterdam. — And the particular kinds of play equipment also?

finance the construction of these spaces? fj: After many years we found a possibility in the Netherlands with a group of people who were interested in the international support of this project. We found them through Liane Lefaivre, researcher of Aldo Van Eyck’s playgrounds project and Henk Doll Dutch architect who was working with Liane in a playground project for Rotterdam. Through my PhD adviser Jurgen Rosemann I met Liane and Henk and together we started to look for help to built at least part of the playground and public spaces project. Henk introduce me a group of Dutch people who were interested in supporting the project. They create Playspace foundation, from this NGO they organized activities to raise money. This give us the platform to find other finance support.

fj: Well it’s not so simple, but sometimes yes.

— So playgrounds can be the seed for larger redevelopment or the humanization of the city in a way?

— And how are you hoping to

fj: Yes, but the playground

is not the final aim of the project, is the way we believe it can be produce through kids, community improvements — Let’s try to imagine the social dynamics of these play spaces themselves. Is there any danger that they’ll be used by, you know, only boys and not girls, or only older children and not younger children? How do you try to assure that the spaces will be suitable for all children? fj: There are many types of play spaces, of course they can be defined according to age but it is also possible to understand them in its relationship with the existing and proposed urban structure. During the several meetings we had to learn how the projects and programs were going to be used. Many of our proposals have been changed because we were understanding the area in a way that probably would not be use in the way we liked. For example, in one meeting we understood that most of our designs were made for boys and not for girls, their mothers show us this mistake.

— And what was it that the mothers wanted for the girls? fj: They wanted, for example places where the girls could meet boys but always under the mothers control <Laughter> also they asked for games and sports, that can be played together. — So there are specific games that are more oriented towards girls fj: Or mixed. The spaces should be open for everybody and should gives opportunities to be used in ways that during the design process we couldn’t know. We never thought that we would be involved in this project for so long. Since we started and until we created the foundation we never thought that this project would be built. It started as an academic research approach and now is a project from where we are opening new programs and projects in different environments. As you said things happened very slowly, but always keep growing overtime.

— Would you recommend this to other designers, this idea of working through a university, starting with an academic project and trying to move it further? fj: I think academic input is very important because it gives a lot of information that. is more difficult to understand if it is coming only from the government or private designers. — What do you imagine your next steps to be with this project? fj: First we are trying to keep the strategy in a continuity building process, we have projects to build at least two of the playspaces per year. Also we have a project that would be support by Lift Kids foundation to built an educational center in the slum, for that the Municipality gave us an abandoned industrial building that would be transformed into spaces for arts, handcraft, library and a small auditorium. Also we want to go on with academic research in other places, we already made some approaches for a place in the

west part of the country and for other municipalities, we will start a new research with Berlage Institute for a slum in the San Martin district, one of the northwest municipalities of the Metropolitan area of the Buenos Aires city — And also, it sounds like, to initiate other kinds of projects besides play spaces – other kinds of public space? fj: It could be public space, or other public facilities but always focusing in the improvements for the youngest population

Chapter g

Public Space

To discover the slums of Buenos Aires is to experience a space where the city constructs itself on a daily basis. Here, one is most likely to observe need and impoverishment. However it is possible 1 to find another type of experience: villas de emergencia are places where generations of residents have consolidated a defined communitarian structure in the daily life of the neighborhood. To capitalize on that already-existing sense of community, we have been developing public spaces in the villas where we are working in Buenos Aires. Recreational activities of all sorts are spaces that permit integration, according to their scale, spaces and communities, because they propose different ways of re-utilizing urban space in the context of tacit or predefind agreements of social co-existence. Many different types of events are programmed to define where and how to recognize and construct a new network of activities. Youth participate in this decision-making through their written opinions, as well as through drawings and photographs. They have a voice in deciding what should be built and where. This process of early involvement was important because it attracted the attention of adults who would directly or indirectly become part of the transformation. One of the first activities undertaken was to paint a mural in one of the most problematic areas of the neighborhood. Both poverty and daily violence characterized the area, so the project team sought to involve youth with records of violence; muralists led by artists and social workers through working group activities in order to develop a design for the area that also sought to address hidden structural problems of violence, communication and social development. The subject matter that was developed by the community set out to show and denounce violence in the neighborhood by honoring the memory of those who had lost their lives to violence. Many cultural happenings of a neighborhood help construct a space of daily coexistence, putting into place not only physical and social

improvement of the urban area, but creating the integrative capacity of making the villas part of the city. It precisely the internal culture that identifies them as a community and this forms a basis to transform discriminatory processes. Many institutions are trying to consolidate spaces where residents can define their own identity. These range from large scale municipal government projects, such as participatory budgeting projects to more bottom up initiatives from ngos, foundations or religious institutions that support local development opportunities. In the case of this project, the central element includes the design of sports fields, play spaces and meeting places, which offer opportunities of progress for many local people. In Buenos Aires, these villas de emergencia continue to be hidden away and not integrated into the city as a whole. In part, that is because of broader structural poverty issues, but it is also because most non-dwellers are afraid to venture into the villas because they are widely perceived as dangerous places. Villas, precisely because they are precarious and illegal settlements with high crime rates, represent a strange and terrifying urban space for the residents of the ÂŤformalÂť city. Thus, villa residents suffer a stigma that goes beyond their condition of poverty. It is not only economic distance and socio-spatial segregation that separates them from the rest of society, but the suspicion of criminality. Villeros are seen from the outside in a derogatory fashion. Nevertheless, their status as villeros is different within the villa itself and is adopted as a badge of communitarian identity. Survival techniques adopted by villa residents range from the symbolic and cultural appropriation of a villero identity to the imprint of this identity on cultural products and communitarian institutions.

The Villa Tranquila project is based in this socio-spatial articulation capacity of the neighborhood, basing its urban design on a small activities network for its youngest population. Games that involve community participation, along with neighbourhood involvement in the design of community leisure space, brings the youth into the life of the community and the community into the life of the city.

1. Literally, «emergency dwelling», an euphemisim for villamiseria – something that could be translated as «miserable settlement», which means «slum». As Oscar Conde notes in his Diccionario Etimológico del Lunfardo (Buenos Aires, Perfil Libros, 1998) it is

Although the experience is focused on an specific area, the evaluation of the results produced by its process and methodologies hope to at the same time define the replicability and adaptability of its strategy in areas with similar characteristics in terms of scale, context,or socio-territorial conflict.

a neighborhood rised with precarious houses and deficient infrastructure, inhabited by a population which is large and heterogeneous (…). The word became popular around the end of the second Juan Domingo Perón

This experience shows us a possible path, obviously not the only one, but a successful approach to flexible project design of public places, suitable for games, social gatherings and sports activities. Through youth and youth activities, it is possible to find a model of urban integration in areas and societies that struggle to be recognized as part of the city.

administration, to name the hamlets with tin roofs built on Buenos Aires and its suburbs as a consequence of internal migrations.

Chapter gg

Problem Statement

From a social viewpoint, a city is a cultural object as it produces specific collective meanings through the use of its physical form. Public space is not a physical entity, a mere open space, but a place where social life materializes its community values. This socio-cultural approach to the city and public space is also applicable to peripheral areas. From a physical perspective, periphery is the place of «urban pathologies» (a polluted river, a rubbish dump, or an unfinished highway, for instance), but from a cultural viewpoint, the peripheral condition also includes marginalized places characterized by a lack of integration and socio-cultural links to the broader city network. Moreover and considered from this angle, the peripheral condition has a relational dimension, since it is in the dichotomised interdependence and the confronted vision of the central and peripheral space, where individual and common values and deficiencies are manifested. The values of an urban area are not an intrinsic feature of their own: it only acquires significance by reference to areas lacking it. As Néstor García Canclini points out in his intercultural maps, these differences (seen as cultural 2 activities) are constructed in terms of a distance from «the other» , which demonstrates how our own prestige and stigmas develop. But these processes of differentiation quite often impair public life in a city, as they easily turn from definitions of otherness into real acts of marginalization of what is different. Thus, many places in the city cease from being those defined as «others» in a certain urban dialogue to enter a process of radical segregation that may even 3 culminate in the racial stigmatization of societies and places. Presently, more that 50% of the total world population is living within cities. It is predicted that at halfway the twenty-first century perhaps 75 percent of the world’s population (two or three billion people) will live in cities.

Most of this future urban growth will be in the cities of Africa, Asia and Latin America. This large influx of people leads to transitional urban enclaves that become semi-permanent living environments for the urban poor. These informal settlements or slums are mostly built by the residents themselves on empty and undesirable lands, the so-called marginal areas of the formal city. These informal settlements are not integrated in the formal city, they do not conform to zoning laws and lack urban services. The inhabitants are excluded from the urban society and economy, and have no social status. New informal settlements seem to grow faster than existing ones are upgraded and included into the formal city. Despite policy interventions, informal settlements have become semi-permanent living environments for the urban poor. More communities will arise on deplorable areas and on lands of environmental importance. If societies do not prepare their cities for new arrivals, do not link their new homes to water or sanitation infrastructures, contamination of the urban region will become inevitable and will negatively affect the environmental sustainability of much larger areas. Furthermore, economic competition between global cities will be lost by societies that criminalize poverty and negate inequality. Blind spots in urban areas that lack sewage, drinking water, electricity and open space cause spatial fragmentation. Malnutrition, illiteracy, unemployment, homelessness and violence produce social tension. The prolongation of acceptance of marginal areas will lead to urban failure and environmental disasters, it will 4 deter investment and ignite political explosions . In Buenos Aires, during the period of neoliberal economics in the 5 6 90s, socio-economic polarization became more pronounced. Through the dismantlement of the national industry network and

the loss of employment related to that, and by debilitating the State as an agent of redistribution, the economic reforms led to an increase in the gap between the rich and poor. According to Pablo Ciccolella, 80% of the population in the metropolitan area of Buenos Aires suffered tangible losses to their income, whereas only the 7 top 20% made any profit during this period. In recent years, there has been some evidence that might lead us to suppose that social inequity has increased, creating a dangerous relationship between integrated and marginalized groups, with consequences that are difficult to revert (as other Latin American cities have already shown) regarding environmental aspects as well as marginality and insecurity. This social unfolding has produced asymmetrical growth in the city, which is evident in the «shantytownization» of central and peripheral areas and likewise through the widespread urban fragmentation with ever-strengthening barriers that fracture the physical and social cohesion of the city. For example the explosive growth of gated communities, vast highways and exclusive new spaces for living and shopping, demonstrate this evolution. The institutional, economic, and social crisis of 2001-2003 in Argentina marked a point of inflection for the urban issue of exclusion, modifying the aims of municipal plans concerning impoverished areas of the city. The effect of the crisis on all social strata led not only to a widespread awareness of marginality as an issue (ignored for years by the formal urban society) but also to an understanding of the high level of interdependence between marginalized and integrated populations, and of the permanent character of marginalized people, who up to that moment were always considered as residents of provisory spaces. Today in Argentina, strategic planning includes not only programs to address housing shortages but also action for validating the legality 8 and civic belonging of marginal neighborhoods.

The permanent character of these communities requires a special type of urban project that is not only focused on physical and infrastructural approaches, but also is centered on creating places that can be symbolically appropriated by their dwellers. It is through the strengthening of existing socio-cultural interactions and the identification of community through difference (i.e. us and them), both internal and with the neighboring context, that a process of urban integration will be viable. Based on this conceptual framework, this work will survey the problem of urban marginalization by one of its more critical 9 expressions in the contemporary city: the villas de emergencia. The aims is to define an urban design strategy for the integration of those settlements, which enables them to become neighbourhoods with their own identity and socio-cultural significance. The complexity of this reality makes it important to establish a rational process to analyze the context and to define a diagnosis for each particular situation of each particular location. The premises that guide this project thus entail the identification of the pre-existing urban and social conditions in the place to be intervened The socialization networks, the systems of daily life, and the cultural significations of the community in the villa de emergencia are therefore key parameters, working as a starting point for the project (by being the guides for it), and also as a finishing line (as indicators of the project in terms of the solidification of those socio-cultural networks). Based on this information the project formulates, by a multi-actor and multi-scalar dynamic approach, strategies that fulfil the needs of an area in a ‘clear open system’. The flexibility that characterize this ‘openness’ condition of the urban design, is what allows the transformation process to ‘provide equal access –spatial as well as non-spatial- to all the urban resources and opportunities available, 10 facilitating coexistence of the diverse groups and individuals.

It is in this coexistences where the project can seeks to improve the integration, interconnection and interaction opportunities through a network of public places made up of spaces for community activities, infrastructures and flows. As a sort of â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;urbanization germâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, the different interventions can provoke, in the context of this associative network, some of the exiting inner evolutionary forces and inertias in order to reinforce and to develop the social and symbolic structure of the settlement. As a global solution to the problem of urban marginality exceeds the proposals and possibilities of an urban project, it will only be a case study focused on one specific settlement, operating on the concrete physical and social conditions on the ground. The settlement is Villa Tranquila, situated in the Municipality of Avellaneda, in the metropolitan area of Buenos Aires. The choice of Villa Tranquila was due to its potentialities, in terms of it's particular location and of its strong social structure. 11 The Municipality of Avellaneda has a project for the building of new housing and for infrastructural improvement in the villa. Also the critical evaluation of this project, and its comparison and integration with the proposed projects, make Villa Tranquila a settlement of special interest to undertake an urban improvement initiative.

The project adds to the debate surrounding the possibilities of architecture and urbanism to provide solutions and these concerns can be summarized in five basic starting points that triggered the project: 1 The strategies of urban projects in informal settlements take, as a starting point, an understanding of the social, spatial and urban systems that organize the daily life of their inhabitants.

2 The project strategies try to formulate not only a permanent and unchanging model of spatial production, but also a network of socio-cultural activities that, through its evolution, adaptation, and interaction will produce the process of recovery of the settlementsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; context. 3. The tool, and at the same time the main purpose of the project, is public space, since it is through this that a new form of interaction between slum and city can be generated. 4. Rather than establish a definite design, the project aims to generate a process for a viable future evolution; for that, it must be flexible, that is, adaptable to the modifications and limitations that could come up through its development, and also to the use of the urban environment by the inhabitants, as well as to possible budget constraints. 5. Participation as part of slum upgrading projects defines, according to information of the pre-existences, negotiated design strategies, and partnership for construction, management and financing of the transformation process.

2. García Canclini, Néstor, Diferentes,

metropolización y desigualdades»

construction or habitability, and

desiguales y desconectados. Mapa de

eure, v. 28, nº 85, Santiago de Chile,

without service, health, and hygiene

la interculturalidad, Barcelona, Gedisa,

december 2002.

infrastructures compatible with urban life. Jiménez Nelia Mabel,

2004. 7. According to Michael Janoschka,

Ginobilli Maria Elena. «Las villas de

3. See Auyero, Javier, «Claves para

the abandonment of the management

emergencia como espacios urbanos

pensar la marginación», introduction

and control of the urban development

estigmatizados». Universidad Nacional

to Loïc Wacquant Parias urbanos.

by the State, and their appropriation

del sur. haol 1 (spring 2003) p.76

Marginalidad en la ciudad a comienzos

by private actors resulted in the

del milenio, Buenos Aires, Manantial,

appearance of saleable, profitable, and

10. Rieniets, Tim, «dimensions:

2007.

valuable urban forms useful for the

introduction» in Rieniets, Tim, Jennifer

market. This new spatial redistribution

Sigler, Christiaanse Kees, Open City.

4. Huaycan Project, Peru. Marginal

focused on new urban forms like

Designing Coexistence, Amsterdam,

Area Design and Development (MADD):

shopping malls, urban entertainment

2009.

dr. Flavio Janches, dr. Diego Sepulveda

centers, private schools, and

Carmona, ir. Jolai van der Vegt.

residential gated communities

11. Villa Tranquila. Programa de

guarded and not admitting general

urbanización de la Municipalidad de

5. The years that match Carlos Menem

public access. See Janoschka,

Avellaneda. Decreto Municipal nº 565-

first and second administration

Michael, «El nuevo modelo de la ciudad

04 del 23-08-04 y ratificado.

and Fernando de la Rua unfinished

latinoamericana: fragmentación y

presidency, a span that stretches

privatización», EURE, v. 28, nº 85,

between 1989 and 1999 in the first

Santiago de Chile, December 2002.

case and 1999 and 2001 for the later. 8. As we will see later on in the 6. According to Marie-France Prevot

text, the Villa Tranquila case is

Schapira, «the economic growth in

paradigmatic of this new official

the ’90s didn’t stop poverty […] In

approach to understand and manage

Argentina, after almost a ten years

the urban marginality problem.

growth, a strong increase in income per inhabitant as well as a strong drop

9. The Municipal Committee for

in inflation all through the decade

Housing in the city of Buenos Aires

conjugate simultaneously with high

defines villa de emergencia as an

unemployment and an increase

illegal settlement of families in

in poverty». Prevot Schapira, M.F.,

public or private lands, with buildings

«Buenos Aires en los años ’90s:

not meeting basic regulations for

Chapter ggg

Theoretical Frame

As expressed in Chapter �, the idea of the city as a cultural object confers a particular human dimension regarding the concept of public space. From a cultural viewpoint, public space, physically embodied in urban elements like parks or streets, is a central factor in the symbolic life of a city. As the context where experiences and routines of inhabitants meet, it is the space the represents par excellence of community life. Hannah Arendt´s reflections on the concept of «public» are of pertinent value for a first-time consideration of the matter. Arendt defines what is public starting with the idea of political «action», which involves all human activity taking place outside the private sphere, in interaction with others and where the individual constitutes himself as a person. It is through the action that individuals «show who they are, reveal actively their unique and personal identity and make their appearance in the human world […] (and it is) in this interaction with others, the individual discovers himself, finds out what distinguishes him from the others.» According to Arendt, «the discourse and the action reveal this unique quality of being distinct. Through them, men differentiate instead of simply being dissimilar; they are the ways in which human beings present one another, not as physical objects, 11 but qua men». The term public means then «the own world in what is common to all of us, and differentiated from the part of it that we own privately […] The public sphere, like the world in common, gathers us, and it nevertheless prevents us from 12 falling one on another». Public space can therefore be conceived not as the physical space owned by the State according to property regulations, but as a space owned by all, and which, from a socio-cultural viewpoint, is the community expression of contact and communion among individuals. As a spatial embodiment of community, the «public»

can then emerge spontaneously from the natural dynamics of the city to utilize these spaces, conferring such character that was not 13 planned and that laws cannot create.

Based on the premises of physical rationality and equality, as well as on hygiene values in considering the role of nature in modern cities, the Modern Movement changed this human and political notion of public space, aiming instead at defining it by physical conformation, abstract values and a general conception, almost physiological, of the individual’s needs. The urbanism of the modern movement has always sustained a functionalism based on efficiency as a central value, with results that were, almost invariably, the application of sectoral policies instead of actions articulating the diversity and complexity of urban demands. So, in the case of Argentina for example when examining largescale housing projects, each operation is committed to a certain social segment, and priority is usually assigned to geographically fragmented or isolated land sites according to road infrastructure, both as an ordering element and as an investment. Furthermore and by confusing urbanism with housing and public works, the public policies have forgotten the potential of public space as an integral 1 and cohesive product of the city. This limitation in the view of public space has led, for instance, to conceive the street as a simple transit area, or a park as an urban oxygenation center, neglecting with this the crucial roles of both elements as social interaction junctions. This de-socialized vision of public space is consistent with a general negative diagnosis by the modern movement about the existing city. Cities overwhelmed by the intense modernization processes experienced during the SQS century, and the tremendous devastation later occasioned by the Second World War, created a context in which the urbanists seemed to have nothing to rescue

from the inherited city. Hence Le Corbusier, in his principles of urbanism, takes the socio-cultural deterioration, the pathologically irrecoverable environment, the hostile milieu, and the functional incapacity of the traditional city as a starting point, and generates 15 a new concept of urban intervention. According to this approach, the city has to be re-founded through planning, through a new start based on a rationalist urban concept in which the human is a fixed and measurable datum. Everything pre-existing is considered as an accident, and it has to be not only ignored but also eliminated in favor of the rationalization of the city.

since everybody belongs to the same one. Gated communities and enclosed neighborhoods (known locally as «country clubs») have a social homogeneity that is apparent even in the monotony of their architecture. As Richard Sennet observes, the absence of difference, the sense that we all are peers, and the feeling that there is nothing to negotiate are value for such societies composed of those «who belong to the same class and share the same opinion». The spread of these forms of space appropriation in many Latin American cities generates a fragmented city made up of islands inhabited by these «communities of equals».

In the present-day globalized context, this facet of the modern movement has tended to be reproduced. Today, many urban transformation projects operate in de-contextualized voids, seen as spaces where it is possible to materialize ideal images of the «best place for life, work, and education». This way, vacant areas of the city, usually produced by obsolete or disused infrastructure, turn into the perfect grounds for experimentation, since the new urban space becomes independent from historical and cultural references precisely on account of their emptiness of content and their isolation from the interweaving of traditional functions and events. The urbanistic operation in these vacant areas materialize into projects that generate a sort of «appearance» of urbanity: spaces with explicit references to urban elements are created, trying to recreate the feeling of urbanity and social openness characteristic of the traditional city, but that ultimately are not but a caricature of the real city. This situation hides a very different reality in which many urban spaces have been homogenized and privatized.

The fragmented city means the disappearance of public space as a space of integration and interaction among different social groups. Streets, as in the modern movement paradigm, become simple transit areas among the different urban islands. Through the physical and symbolic barriers that it creates among the different areas of the city, this absence of integration enhances social polarization. In turn, the disappearance of public space within each of these areas of «equals» generates a sense of dis-belonging in their inhabitants, since these new urban spaces are «prohibitory places that, with their physical isolation, foment the disintegration 16 of the local forms of solidarity and community life». In the presentday context of globalization, this disappearance involves also a loss of identity for the city and its neighborhoods (which, under this circumstance, should already be called fragments) in relation to other cities. It’s a process of real homogenization in urban styles that makes cities increasingly similar to one another.

In these pseudo-urban areas, the city is no longer an instrument of interaction and social integration, but on the contrary, just a cosmetic improvement. As a matter of fact, these areas (the ones that are vulnerable to be transformed by a large urban project) have a social composition much more homogeneous than the traditional city; integration among different classes is not necessary in them,

Nevertheless, an alternative vision about this homogenization understanding of cities in a global context aims to understand the global and the local in terms of their reciprocal relationship. According to Ulrich Beck, the globalization process can be as much a homogenization process as one that reinforces the identities and characteristics of places. As it is not possible for the local identity to emerge from the global, there is in the globalization process an

implicit recognition of the local level. A city can therefore find in the globalized context a chance to cultivate its singularities and, through them, to position itself in a new way towards the world. This way, the local sphere can build the engine of a new form of international integration, related to aspects of local identity. By «strengthening its differentials, identities, and personalities [a city] potentates a kind of internal cultural re-signification and the proper way to reposition its place in the global context […] so, the concept of «globalization» can be described as a process that creates transnational links and social spaces, re-evaluating 17 local cultures and helping to foreground third cultures». Such recognition of the place as a point of valuation of the city based on a local-global relationship repositions the cultural difference in all its cohesive power. Many examples illustrate this kind of intervention based on repositioning values emerged from restricted particular events that potentiate the global consumption of historical and social 18 local events considered as individual marks. So, cities promote themselves locally by re-signifying the marks consolidated in the global context, and by globalizing the singularities of their particular identities. Regardless of our own view, globalization and its effects on local identities is an un-deniable and irreversible process, generating 19 what François Ascher has called a «metapolical» system. In this system, big metropolises compete one with another, and the daily life of their inhabitants may take place in more than one city, precisely due to the characteristics of a globalized society and economy that interconnect metropolises one with another. So, the inhabitant of a city may also be the inhabitant of several ones at the same time, going from one to another both virtually and physically. This entails a deep change in the processes of cohesion, identity, and civic belonging to each metropolis, and encourages

the emergence of transit places (or «no-places» in Marc Augé’s terminology), like airports, shopping malls, hotel complexes, and so 20 on, that reproduce homogenously in the different metropolises. Clearly restricted to a specific sector, this «metapolization» process potentates the marginalization of those who do not belong to it, and eventually increases the inequalities among the different urban areas in the same city, creating an insurmountable breach between those who are integrated to the sector and those who are not. Along with the globalization of the urban experience, the contemporary world involves economic changes in the way of production, strongly marking the physiognomy of cities. The informatics revolution in the last thirty years has been no exception to this. The constant technological revolution of late capitalism, called modernization by Ascher, has involved new forms and new activities of production and consumption, with big changes 21 in the systems of spatial, social, and activities regrouping. Certain socio-spatial changes stand out as typical features of life in the neoliberal city over the last two decades of the SQS century. They are the spread of highway networks that connect distant areas without creating intermediate spaces, and the consequent self-exclusion of different urban fragments, which limit their everyday contact with neighboring contexts (gated communities being the classic example). Under these parameters, the urban intervention strategies neglect the development of the city as a system of social links, and go on to see it as a commercializable product, focusing the effort on projects capable of adding value according to the demands of national and international market forces. In this new urban scheme, the inhabitants of economically integrated sectors evaluate the city according to two priorities: personal security, and accessibility to areas where their everyday life takes place. These requirements become the new standard of value for the urban space, disregarding traditional strategic aspects such as heterogeneity and social

diversity. In this process of dissolution, fragmentation, and privatization, the city suffers a weakening of public space as a civic space, which causes un-governable territory now filled up with products, inequalities, and marginalization. A guiding principle postulated by these new forms of planning is the re-signification of urban peripheries as ways of habitat that contrast with the collapsed and degraded traditional urban centers. But there is a paradox here, as Marteen Hajer and Arnold Reijndorp point out: «while urban designers try to correct the shapelessness of urban periphery by urbanizing it, in their attempts to regenerate the inner-city they adopt the organizational principles of the periphery […] its designs and principles of control are simply replicated in the city. Parts of the city are adapted to make them fit for the requirements of healthy house hunters and consumerswho want a 22 safe, controlled, and segregate environment».

None of these new paradigms of strategic planning have managed to replace the public space as a central tool for urban transformation, on account of its cohesive capacity that promotes 23 symbolic identification, expression, and cultural integration. It is only by projecting the public space as a place of community dominion that cities were able to re-conquer and re-qualify their historically dis-articulated peripheries, linking them to the city as a whole. The transformation process initiated during the decade of 1980 in Barcelona clearly shows the use of public space as part of an urban view focused on integration and non-exclusion. Its strategy of «making city in the city» was based on the construction of public spaces at all scales from local to global, and on their positive impact on the degraded environment.

The urban renewal plan of developing of new centralities designed by Spanish architect Oriol Bohigas (which included multiple dispersed interventions with alternative scales, programs, and contents) made it possible both to promote the development of the outskirts and to reposition the qualities of public space design as an essential tool in the strategic urban planning. Its methodology of city construction was based on the «re-evaluation of the place, of public space, of urban habitat, of life quality, of the dialectic between the city and its districts, and on the city polycentrism». The Amsterdam playground network planned by the Municipality of Amsterdam and design by Architect Aldo Van Eyck, used, as described by Liane Lefaivre (2007), the power of public space for the recovery of degraded areas. Bearing in mind the capacity of public playgrounds to connect people with the place, this project set an urban transformation process for post-war Amsterdam through activities accessible to people of all ages and from different cultural backgrounds. With an intervention of a polycentric, interstitial, and participative character the networks created a approximately 700 playground areas that made it possible to strengthen the sense of 24 community in a devastated socio-territorial context. This kind of intervention clearly defends a concept of «urban» that considers the urban as a daily experience (what García Canclini calls «micropolis»). In the symbolic dynamics of social life, each society reacts in a particular way to a space –even to spaces materially identical– according to its specific urban imaginary in 25 the group. And this clearly proves to be of potential value in public space as a key differentiation element whose culturally-determined appropriation enables the consolidation of urban identity. By having public spaces that, beyond their physical form, differ on account of their cultural signification for certain social groups, cities 26 cease to be similar to one another.

Buenos Aires city Urban grid structure

From this view of urban space, is it possible to conceive an alternative way of city production. The projectual device will be aimed at generating intensity points, as «events», capable of creating symbolic identification and social integration. These events would be intermediate spaces, spatially communicative, not intended as permanent and unchanging facts but rather as evolved 27 and adaptable events, places of seduction produced in the «common» place of a society. The key to their meaning and success will be the use and the appropriation that the community itself will make of them. The domain made on the everyday public activity is defined as “a balance between its people’s determination to have essential privacy and their simultaneous wishes for differing degrees of contact, enjoyment of help from the people around. This balance is largely made up of small, sensitively managed details, practiced and 28 accepted so casually that they are normally taken for granted. «This everyday-life space is banal, it is repetitive, it is everywhere and nowhere, it is a place that has few characteristics that people pay attention to… but it also a zone of possibility and potential 29 transformation» . According to Jane Jacobs, Its dynamism is determined basically by its mixture of uses, been «sufficiently complex to sustain city safety, public contact and cross-use. The generation of this diversity is how the city life will get its best chances to improve its potentiality.» For Margaret Crawford, this everyday space defined by the intersection between the individual or group and the rest of the city, a space where the city accumulates the multiple social and 30 economic transactions. Paraphrasing Jean Nouvel, these «little brushstrokes» proposed by the everyday urbanism allow for the project to change at any moment according to the process 31 evolution.

This multiple dimension of urban space can therefore be appreciated not only in the quality of its physical form but also, as Jordi Borja points out, «in the intensity and quality of the social relation it facilitates, in its potential to make groups and strengths inter-actuate, and in its capacity to encourage symbolic 32 identification, expression, and cultural integration.» It is in this public domain, where this everyday space can be identify as a place for centrality. The strategy is then to build -using Jordi Borja concept- «city inside the city» to improve the neighborhood by its differences, its functional and social mix, its places for relationship and identification and its urban life and communitarian expression. The structure of Buenos Aires is the result of multiple urban projects and experiences that are constantly overlapping to determine its physical, social, and cultural complexity. Like the rest of the cities in the old Spanish colonies, the territorial structure of Buenos Aires is based on a homogeneous grid present in the historic city center since the moment of its foundation. This primal grid layout, which divided the virgin territory into square blocks with sides measuring 100 meters (according to the «Laws of the Indies» of 1573 for the coastal cities), set up a regular land registry structure that allowed, over the course of history, a systematic spatial demarcation and a precise delimitation between public and private space, sub-diving space into lots. This form of urbanization linked to rural land sales was often criticized on account of its rigidity and homogeneity that, by imposing anonymity on the urban landscape, hindered the differentiation and symbolic appropriation of its diverse spaces. Lewis Mumford has pointed out the mercantile and speculative dimension of this city scheme where «the individual lot, the block, the street, and the avenue are all used as abstract units for buying and selling, without respect 33 for historical uses, topographic features, or social needs». Along

with this mercantile aspect of the Spanish grid, there is a certain democratic egalitarianism in the sense that, with the blocks being homogeneous, every lot has an analogous relation with the street space. This way it becomes an authentic public space, since it is everybody’s space, where social interaction occurs.

city in relation to itself, and the recovery of its historical memory. So, public interventions bear the responsibility of serving as a global model of a city and, at the same time, of counteracting the effects opposite to that model produced by the actual development 35 of the city.»

At the end of the SQS century in Argentina, as part of a nationwide development framework resulting from an economic model based on agricultural exportation, and with the arrival of huge waves of immigrants, the city of Buenos Aires experienced a rapid process of expansion both in its area and its population (from about 190,000 in 1869 to 1.5 million in 1930). A noteworthy aspect in this process was the active management by the city government –chiefly personified in the first mayor of the city, Torcuato de Alvear 1883 to organize this growth within the hygienist paradigms of urbanism of that period. The orthogonal grid pattern inherited from the Hispanic city was highly important to planners; in spite of changes introduced for multiple reasons, it was basically preserved and used in all new areas. It was thought that, on account of the homogeneity it gave to the different areas in the city, this layout made it possible for better integration and provision of urban infrastructure, facilitating at the same time the governmental control of these areas. Deliberate discontinuities were nevertheless introduced in the grid, like squares, parks, avenues, and diagonals, all of which played a fundamental role by re-signifying the public space of streets, that came from the regular checkerboard diagram, through the creation 34 of nodal points and differentiation marks.

The democratization proposed by the state planning institution was based on the city-nature relationship and on the layout of the infrastructure system. The city-nature relationship, understood as the relationship between the city and its original natural landscape, has historically been unique in Buenos Aires. A characteristic of public space in Buenos Aires, present in its primal layout and accentuated later in the expansion period, was the relative independence provided to urban planning by topographic regularity, generating a design that wouldn»t encounter conditioning of any kind in its monotonous natural environment. This exclusion of the geographic element generated not only a regular city in terms of the grid, but also a model of unlimited expansion towards the North, the South, and the West, and in a certain way, even to the East. The natural sedimentation system of the Río de la Plata [River Plate] permits an increase of land and the constant modification of the coastal form. Since SQS century, large-scale infrastructural works have taken advantage of these areas, independent from the narrow subdivision of the original layout, for its development.

The process of urban expansion defined by these characteristics had some especially notable effects. On one hand, it involved a division into lots and a regulated sale of the new lands. On the other hand, it was a real process of democratization of the urban space, since it followed a logic of state intervention which gave priority to public use spaces, materializing «in the wishes of social equalization and civic institutionalization the renewal of the existing

The topographic regularity and the malleability of the coastline determined a city that, by completely cutting itself off from its physical precondition, has ignored the natural feature that could characterize it: the river coastline. Many urban projects kept trying to resolve this incapacity of relation between the monotony of the artificial grid and the horizontal Río de la Plata through public space as an interface. With his project of five towers on a coastal platform33, Le Corbusier illustrated this interest in recovering the character produced on the city by the spatial and symbolic greatness of the river: «suddenly, I have seen Buenos Aires. The

most uniform and flat Argentinean sky, with no limits from left to right, so full of stars, and Buenos Aires, that fierce line of light starting from the right to the infinite, level with water. Nothing else except, in the center of the light line, the crackling of an electric fire that expresses the heart of the city. That»s all. Buenos Aires is neither picturesque nor variated. Just a reunion of the Pampa and 36 the ocean, a line illuminating the night». A second meaning of the city-nature relationship has been of particular significance since the late SQS century: the relation of the city no longer with its concrete natural environment but with a generic conception of the «natural» embodied in plant species and landscapes supplied by park-gardening (a sort of «tamed nature»). This idea of nature was used to improve the urban space quality, to act as an incentive to social cohesion, and to potentiate the landscape by generating recognizable spaces. The park was undoubtedly one of the main elements in this conception of urbanity and civility. It was not only the main road in the new city-nature relationship proposed by late SQS century planners who saw in a park a purifying lung to the increasingly industrial city, but also, from a social viewpoint, it was considered to be an ideal element to generate community values, strengthening the aspirations for social equalization and civic institutionalization. «The park as a new concept of show appears then as an insight into the urban sociability in which, as an educational place for civic modern life, new social and cultural bonds amalgamate. […] The park as supported by Gorelik, a modern topology for recreation and show represents then, with its independence from the traditional city, the 37 new city as a machine for educating society for the political life». Following the American model of the park, the Parques de Palermo were built in the north corridor of Buenos Aires in the late SQS century. It was conceived as the place of the city's new society.

Laying out a green belt of inner parks crossing the city around the historic center, was a way of imposing on the regular grid «the new uses which affect life in all social sectors, since a park, on account of its cohesive virtues, is a manner of appeasing the class conflicts latent in mass democracies […] by fighting depopulation […] 38 alleviating poverty, overcoming ignorance, and avoiding illness». This plan of parks, representing the modern typology of recreation and exhibition, was to cover all the areas in the city, since «their educational role, like the school, must be homogeneously shared 39 out at the municipal level». Another facet in this recovery of urban civic space by means of public space was the re-evaluation of the historic center of the city through its monumentalization. A series of projects, like the opening of Avenida de Mayo and the diagonal avenues that start off from the Plaza de Mayo, as well as the public recreation projects of Costanera Sur and Puerto Madero, were at their time a clear search for a new hierarchy of the old center, so as to compensate the unstable urban balance threatened by city growth. These projects were aimed at building a new historic memory in the central area, and for this purpose they created monumental scenarios where architecture and urbanism generated spaces, and magnificent perspectives that consolidated the character, identity, and equity of the central city. The historic development of infrastructure systems has also gradually incorporated into the original urban pattern a different city-building model that superimposed itself upon that of the parks and the historic center projects. Having productivity and transportation improvement as key objectives, the infrastructure systems (basically the diverse port projects and the railway systems) produced urban expansion plans with new focuses and new growth directions, as well as with new socio-cultural characterizations of urban fragments, which, in their expansion, generated new centralities.

Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area Railway system and new centralities

Through the diverse projects for the Riachuelo entrance [the harbor entrance], as much as through the failed Puerto Madero project in the late SQS century, or the final project of Puerto Nuevo, the port and its successive physiognomies determined different socioproductive models. Along with the port-industrial projects in the south of the metropolitan area: the chanalization and straitening of the Riachuelo River and the Dock Sud projects, it is worth mentioning a previous one: the port of Buenos Aires, devised not to define an industrial zone but as an exit for Argentinean exports. In the intense debate preceding the building of the port, two main proposals (by engineers Eduardo Madero and Luis Huergo, respectively) stood for two alternative conceptions of the cultural character the city should assume. One, closed in it, proposed a great entrance door providing hierarchy to the city center; the other, was based on the ambiguity in the Riachuelo design and on a bigger emphasis on the 40 southward extension. Puerto Madero, the project finally selected and set in motion, can be classed among the projects of monumentalization and valuation of the old historic city center. The evident aesthetic and monumental intention of both its buildings and its magnificent perspectives is not related to technical and commercial effectiveness as much as to a socio-cultural approach of the urban infrastructure in which technology appears as a beautifying element and a sign of progress to be exhibited. «Technology may be cutting-edge as long as it is possible for it to be installed in a pre41 existing cultural and symbolic context». Regardless of the project’s failure (it was abandoned on account of its obvious unsuitability), the character of emblematic space assigned by it to the physical space of Puerto Madero was clearly one of the factors that allowed for the area to be recovered during the 1990s decade as the focal point in a new paradigm of centrality.

Also the road system has been historically a way of structuring the socio-cultural space in the city. Reinforced later by the building of railways, the semi-radial structure of the first road system linking the city –with its port in the south– to the towns of Belgrano in the north, and Flores in the west determined a growth design based on five main subjects. All through their development, the train stations along the railway routes gradually made up a sequence of quasi-urban points that became, with time, new centrality focus, away from the historic center. Although in different aspects this network of peripheral centralities was always dependent on the historic center, its particular process of evolution, built on specific myths and traditions, created socio-culturally and physically selfdefined places. In this sense, the stamp left on the city by the railway expansion was not only the singularity of its planning, the 42 architectural value of the stations, or the large spaces of the shunt yards, but also the network of neighborhoods and towns created by it. With the changes in the economy, the programs, and the speed of transportation, occurring at the end of the SQS century and the early SS century, Buenos Aires gradually built its particular identity system which encouraged in programs, spaces, myths, or events, a vocation for cultural representation, social relation, and community belonging. The public space pre-defined in the state policy, or undefined on account of the interruptions and diversions suffered by the infrastructure network, reformulated the concept of urban space as 43 a sign, according to social, productive, and physical preconditions. The key element in this symbolic system was undoubtedly the 44 barrio [neighbourhood], as a socio-cultural unit constituted in each one of the urban fragments progressively defined by the city development: these fragments were no longer simple physical

Buenos Aires City

Palermo Neighborhood

Belgrano Neighborhood

City Center

Photo F. Janches

Buenos Aires City Catalinas Sur Neighborhood and Boca Juniors Stadium Photo F. Janches

conglomerations but rather «symbolic-ideological spaces, reference points for urban social identities, that distinguish the urban (being 45 the general frame for the barrio) as a specific reality». As an identity focus for the city inhabitants, the barrio was the real axis around which, in the historical growth process of Buenos Aires, the main symbolic relationships of differentiation among the community areas and spaces in the city were generated. The development of the barrio meant the emergence of a system for the public space with «certain values and ideals, which contribute both 46 to the cohabitation and the quality of the urban community life». As a spatial, administrative, and even social reality, the barrio determined a social imaginary and a focal point for a sense of belonging that, together with a definition of «us», allowed also a dialogical delimitation of the «alien». Is in this process of identity that the barrio operated as a symbolic axis for the urban sense of belonging in Buenos Aires. With its diverse meanings, the barrio becomes a point of reference for values considered as positives, like basic relationships, traditionalism, authenticity, workingclasses belonging, solidarity, manliness, or as negatives, such as vulgarity, low category, or gossiping. The barrio is thus a point of reference for urban social identities, a space that, in the urban social imaginary, establishes, reproduces and changes the form of their social and cultural relationships.

We have seen that the primal grid layout of Buenos Aires has served throughout the history of the city as a base for spatial experiences, which, by means of transformation and rupture, re-signified the public space in the city. The contemporary era has also found in Buenos Aires an ideal space to build its territorial paradigm ruled by parameters of global integration. This new paradigm, some of whose elements were just described, involved a profound

modification of previous strategies: the urban culture adopted in the decade of 1990 was based on the socio-territorial fragmentation of the city, giving up the concept of a cohesive public space and ignoring the symbolic and cultural pre-existences embodied in the barrios system. This new urban culture materialized in a real restructuring of the city, focused on two main topics. On the one hand, central areas like Retiro or Puerto Madero were reconverted through the construction and/or restoration of representative buildings, becoming real centers for finances, hotels, convention centers, luxury housing, etc. On the other hand, peripheral nodes were developed through the expansion of the freeway network, which meant a proliferation of new suburban enclaves where business complexes, residential centers (gated communities and «country clubs»)., and leisure and consumption centers, conforming an urban network reserved for social sectors with middle-high incomes. The resulting model of spatial specialization reformulates the peripheral or non-central areas by granting attributes for them to insert themselves in a setting of urban competitiveness and market capture: the areas aim to be commercially attractive, and public space becomes an object for private businesses. This new urban scheme was superposed like a big network on the traditional city: high-speed freeways start radially from a hyper developed center and link it to the new peripheral nodes, passing over the intermediate spaces (that is, the traditional road system) with no interaction with them. The obvious reverse side of the new urban system is a divisory line produced by it between integrated and non-integrated areas: those which are socially and economically marginalized in this network are also marginalized from an urban point of view. Thus, the scheme generated a dichotomous territorial development, which increased

Buenos Aires City

Puerto Madero Neighborhood

Puerto Madero Mater Plan

Photo F. Janches

Source: Puerto Madero Coorporation

both the concentration of wealth in certain social sectors and the extreme impoverishment in others, worsening the tendencies produced by the economic model through urban planning and city management policies. The expansion and development of the historic, administrative, and financial center of Puerto Madero as a globally strategic enclave is an example of this international socio-economic urban model. In its strategic planning, architecture, and programmatic structure we can see some of the elements that define its urban paradigms. Its strategic location was always considered to be the perfect place for the growth of the central area of Buenos Aires, but it was under the neo-liberal policies of the ’90s that the area was actually expanded as a center for the new economic power. Its final design was aimed to create a new and sophisticated real-estate product that could materialize the aspirations and needs of the new service society. After years of abandonment, Puerto Madero changed its negative image through a metamorphic process of «prestige-creation» necessary to show the potential of the new Argentine urban business. This social process, consolidated through a symbolic metaphor, reduces the complexity of urban reality to what Jean 47 Baudrillard calls «the space of desire and fantasy». Its urban structure, organized in blocks with a regulated building codification, is the framework for a building heterogeneity (compared to the traditional city) that meets both corporate interests and the demands from certain social sectors. The resulting public space has a completely subordinated role, its main function being to build perspectives of relation among these monuments of private enterprise. This space among buildings reinforces both the internal and external discontinuity of the area compared to the rest of the city. In the streets, avenues and boulevards in Puerto Madero this dis-proportioned and monumental-scale anti-anthropomorphism is accentuated. The lack of obstacles in perspectives, that could fragment the public space, consolidates both the evidence of non-

Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area Highway system and new gated communities

Image 24

Image 25

Buenos Aires Metropolitan Area

Santa Barbara gated community

Photo F. Janches

Master Plan Source: Santa Barbara development

belonging of «the other» and the dematerialization of what is built by daily life. The preconceived form of the area, made up of office centers, international hotels, high-class housing, and spaces for leisure and entertainment, is suitable for defining the place that concentrates the decisive role of multinational corporations. It is in this model of a city that architecture may build its ambitious singularity with idealized aesthetic forms, which, by being independent from pre-existing events, allows the materialization of de-contextualized representations of historical and cultural references. The model of self-referential dialectical intensification becomes its own cultural product. International architecture companies confirm the quality of the global norms: in their repeated character of international aesthetics, offices like hok, kpf, Pelli and Associates, Viñoly Associates (U.S.A.), added to both the unmistakable and replicated Calatrava bridge and the super-designed Philippe Starck’s hotel, embody the stylistic representation of the meanings in this new socio-cultural sensibility and its relation with space. This way, architecture guarantee an international homogeneity of images recognizable in the repetition of projectual recipes: «urban emblems need the name of the architect, well known in the media, as through it they become cultural news, which gives the news a different kind of impact and endorses the operation. That»s why part of the investment effectiveness and the project convalidation lies on the selection of 48 the architect».

Besides the Puerto Madero project, we have pointed that a second development focus during the ’90s emerged in non-urban zones incorporated to the urban model through a highway network and, more in general, through communication channels, both real and 49 virtual. The improvement in highways, along with the increasing psychosis about insecurity and the pseudo-ecologist rhetoric,

enabled the metropolitan area of Buenos Aires in 2005 to have a total of 280 gated communities, 132 «country clubs», 37 small farms, 8 mega-undertakings like a private town and a town-city, supported by Shopping and Business Centers.

to this new way of life guarantees in these new urbanizations the 50 development of real «cities of equals» where the appearance of the «other» becomes threatening and confirms the latent danger in the outside.

This process of territorial reorganization based on a logic of mobility is accompanied by new models of consumption, recreation, and production whose dominant feature is the concentration of these activities in large complexes located in certain peripheral points. A natural consequence of this was the gradual urban deterioration, the decline of the traditional barrio stores and of the areas surrounding the old center.

The space in the «country club» is clearly a de-contextualized one, erasing all reference to previous cultural contents. Furthermore, the independence from the past and from events facilitates decontextualized representations of links and historical-cultural references, intensifying the content of its own cultural production through self-referencing.

In the context of these peripheral urban developments and by ignoring the relations of proximity and identity necessary to build a city, this new model of territorial expansion unfailingly produces urban fragmentation. The resulting emergence of suburban ghettos, where one or another end of the social pyramid concentrates, crown the social imbalance inherent to the model. Unlike previous examples of peripheral areas, the new housing and leisure nodes in this scheme hinder, with their deliberate selfisolation, the possibility of future socio-territorial re-articulations. Life inside these urban fragments has certain recurrent features. On the one hand, the obsession with security is an element in the origin of them all: by making inaccessibility and exclusion an explicit aim of the urban plan, the characteristic fear of middle and high sectors inhabiting these fragments worsens the notion of urban fragmentation. On the other hand, the life-and-nature connection is a much-desired aspect in the «country club», and it is embodied in the creation of simulated and controlled landscapes. Finally, another essential element is the equality among neighbours: as a sort of admission mechanism, the economic and social barrier delimiting the access

Despite the omnipresence of this process and its high-speed expansion, there was always a reaction against it by the traditional city which, aiming at repositioning itself in a both regional and international context, consolidated some of its original features. Many barrios promoted, in traditional events (ordinary or extraordinary) as well as in spatial particularities, the reference systems that define their levels of belonging and continuity in the city. Most of these changes were due to spontaneous reactions among their inhabitants, producing an alternative transformation process which, not depending on institutional proposals or on the real-estate exploitation, modified the evolution inertia by building value and identity. This transformation process emerged naturally in the context following the crisis in December of 2001, as the revaluation of spontaneous civic initiatives, is an example of how the city reacted according to its own dynamics, creating a model of integration upon the cultural relationship built by both the inhabitants and the place. This experience is of particular interest to this project, because it showed the capacity of public space to work as a sphere for social exchange and cohesion. To build public space means then, not only to create a new object-product but also a space which re-signifies the map of everything existing.

The villas de emergencia o villas miseria are one of the strongest ways that social segregation reveals itself in the city of Buenos Aires. Maria Cristina Cravino defines the villa de emergencia as an «erratic occupation of vacant urban land […] characterized by the production of irregular urban lots organized in intricate passageways where vehicles cannot usually drive, and by the building of its houses always in a precarious way, with high density of population and low quality and informality of work 51 among its inhabitants». The appearance of the villas de emergencia in Buenos Aires is related to the industrialization and urbanization processes at the beginning the ’30s, when the concentration of industry jobs in the cities drew large migratory currents both internally and from neighbouring countries. The incapacity for cities to provide work and good salaries for new populations produced a process of socio-territorial precarization. Even if the process of marginalization has followed a pattern of constant increase; five different stages marked changes in the urban form. These were the dynamics and the evolution of the villas 52 problem in Buenos Aires. A first period, from the ’50s until the middle of the ’70s, shows an informal-population increase of almost 180,000 people, and a number of settlements going from 21 in 1956 to 31 in 1976. In a second period, from 1976 until 1983, this population decreased 94% through the implementation, by the military government, of a drastic eradication policy. The 213,823 inhabitants registered in 1976 decreased by 12,593 in 1983. Seventeen settlements disappeared, and only thirteen were allowed to stay. During the third period, from 1983 until 1991, the villas increased their population again up to 50,945. This transitional stage, from an economic model based on national industry to a model characterized by an open economy, required less work per unit of product, and, with the disappearance

of small and middle enterprises, reduced the chances for people to get a stable industry job. A fourth period, related to the neoliberal economic policies in the ’90 s, defined a contradictory and dual city simultaneously characterized by both the growth of modernization and the increase of urban exclusion (the urban development characteristics of this period have been previously mentioned). During the first half of the decade, the economic modernization process based on services was accentuated. Apart from carrying weight on a lower level of industry employment, this process, which started at the end of the 1970's, included in this new stage the privatization and ownership transfer of state enterprises, which 53 resulted in rationalization processes and massive dismissals. In the second half of the decade, modernization lost rhythm and clearly entered into a regressive stage, which would end up in the generalized economic crisis of 2001. According to the newspaper El Cronista Comercial, 762 companies went bankrupt in 1998, whereas 54 in 2001 the number increased to 2696. The social parallel of these economic processes was an increasing level of unemployment and poverty. «During the 1990's, unemployment rates went from between 6% and 7% at the end of the previous decade to approximately 18% in the second half of this decade, along with a decrease of between 15% and 20% in the purchasing power of the global salary. The precarious work went from 27% in 1990 to 35% in 1998, and the 75% of the jobs created in 1998 were precarious or informal. Also income distribution became more regressive during this decade. The social strata with lower incomes went back further still compared to the increase of the two higher incomes strata. In 1990, the poorest 20% of the population received 5.7% of the total income, whereas in 1998 it received only 4.2%. In the same period, on the contrary, the richest 20% passed from 50.7% to 53%. The middle sectors suffered a declination, too, 55 especially between 1994 and 1998».

Slums in the Buenos Aires

la Vivienda. Subsecretaria de

Metropolitan area.

Urbanismo y Vivienda. Ministerio de

There are around 900 slums with

Infraestructura Vivienda y Servicios

almost two millon of inhabitants living

Publicos. Gobierno de la Provincia de

in its informal condition.

Buenos Aires.

Source: data from Instituto de

40% of the poorest families in Gran Buenos Aires received 16.9% of the total income in 1977, 15.7% in 1983, and 11.7% in 1989. In 2004, the poverty level was 44.3%; destitution reached 12.1% of the homes and 17% of the persons. The crisis of 2001 dramatically affected the middle classes, impoverished on account of the generalized unemployment and the freezing of bank deposits, and had a lethal effect on the lower class or lower middle-class families, taking them to levels of poverty previously unknown in Argentina. As a result of the crisis, a drastic increase in the area and density of marginal urbanizations in the city of Buenos Aires and its surrounding districts, with an increase in the population of the villas, 56 approximately from 50,000 in 1999 to 100,000 in 2001. But the existence of villas de emergencia is not only an expression of polarization and economic marginalization they also demontrate strong socio-cultural components of segregation and rejection. The villa, as a precarious and illegal settlement as well as on account of its high rates of violence and crime, represents for the city's formal inhabitant a strange and scary urban space. The people living there are the object of stigmatization due in part to their economic distance from the rest of society but mainly to their belonging and identification as villeros [villa dwellers]. The concept of villa is thus not only associated to economic, social, and cultural deficiencies but also to the stigmatization from the «outside» on its space and population. «The poor is someone who lives in certain neighborhoods in the city, and, on account of his moral values, he deserves to be helped. But the villero is the poor with a bad reputation, who live in marginality conditions, unlawfully, without working, and on welfare […] villero is someone 57 who is suspected, discriminated, and segregated from society». The condition of villero, seen from the outside as denigrate,is nevertheless re-signified inside the villa, and adopted as a community identity.

According to sociologist Mario Margulis, the socio-cultural code, the organizational capacity, and the group identity in these populations enable them «to adapt, to live in precarious conditions, to build and preserve their bonds with neighbors, relatives, and friends, to take advantage of the resources provided by assistance organizations (governmental or not), as well as to benefit from the politic patronage system […] They are based on reciprocity, on favor 58 exchange or material resources exchange». The survival strategies adopted by the villa inhabitants range from the symbolic and cultural appropriation of the identity called villera [of the villa] to the embodiment of this identity in cultural products and community institutions. «In order to survive under these conditions of unemployment and poverty, the so-called «structural poor» [the poor for a number of generations] have produced social and symbolic resources to make their survival easier. These resources, which are part of these sectors» culture and could be considered as cultural, are highly useful to preserve the continuity of family life […] are part of these survival strategies adopted by the home units, and they are also expressed in the use of space and the 59 housing realization». A cultural product that illustrates this re-elaboration of the villa identity is the music style known as cumbia villera, whose composers and performers belong to the villa world. For them, the music is a way of showing who they are to the «others». The lyrics usually vindicate and confirm the stereotype of the villero and the representation made of them by the «other» group: the different ones. The music shows the villeros as «black, addicts, dirty, lazy, dangerous, drunkards, ordinary, and criminals. Also it shows that they do not feel part of society. They try to enter it, to get closer, 60 to frequent the places of the «others», but of course they stay out». The lyrics express the karma that they cannot leave behind and will mark their lives. They have very little to win and a lot to lose,

Villa Las Flores urban grid (fragments) Source: F. Janches

because the «others» do not accept them:

«his fate was already written from the moment he was born. Son of villeros parents, he grew up with the cumbia, and now that he is bigger and he wants to get in the club the cop at the door scornfully shouts: nigger, you're not allowed here. All wash their hands, they always leave you in the lurch. Just by being a villero he was doomed. He's got no luck with jobs, he's rejected everywhere. He was tired, and gave up. Society didn't give him a way out, so he took the wrong track. And Death took him on a heavy night. Just by being a villero 61 he was doomed.

Along with the cultural vindication of their own condition, the villa inhabitants fight the social marginalization by means of community institutions and associations that consolidate the internal organization and solidarity of the different groups, in response to their needs. The football club is a significant example. The practice of football in a villa institution shows how an everyday event may turn into a tool to affirm community belonging. In a club context, football helps neighbors to meet and interact around a common activity, facilitating this way more complex forms of organization and the reinforcement of group identity.

Besides the football club, other key institutions –like mothers committees, neighborhood committees, as well as religious, political, sectoral, or charity associations enhance the bonds and fabric of social relations. The villa institutions spring from initiatives either of the villa inhabitants or from external agents or state organs. Sometimes it is difficult to distinguish between both types of organization in the same villa, «since it is common the coexistence of a wide range of organizations playing diverse roles: neighbors committees or boards; cooperatives; benefit societies; civil associations; Catholic parishes and other cults churches; school or community lunchrooms; nursery schools or day-care centers; political parties premises; social, cultural, and sports centers administrated by the 62 local council, health centers; micro-undertakings». These informal systems of mutual help and reciprocity are a key aspect of the «survival strategies», since it is through this «social capital» (in words of Pierre Bourdieu) that the belonging to a group is structured on a lasting network of (more or less) institutionalized 63 relations of material and symbolic exchanges. The marginal place has then a double representation: for one social group it is a feared space (on account of the high rate of violence and crime), whereas for its inhabitants it is the space where they 64 can exercise their own power. Nevertheless, despite being spaces self-defined under informality and the absence of the state, the villas show a socio-territorial structure that supports, just like the formal city, the community relations system. Public spaces are the ways in which marginalized society may also build the urban values that define their particularity of «being» in the city.

Football fields

Footbal patio

Public market

Main street

Villa Tranquila Slum,

Villa Tranquila slum,

Retiro slum,

Villa Tranquila slum,

Buenos Aires

Photo: F. Janches

Photo F. Janches

11. Arendt, Hannah, La condición

18. Events such as Carnival or football

humana, Buenos Aires, Paidós,

clearly illustrate the consumption

Buenos Aires, 2005, p. 200

of local particularities. Both events, associated to local values, are

12. Id., p.62

presented as international shows: a 'safe' distance is generated so

13. See Borja, Jordi y Muxi, Zaida, El

as to appreciate or comsume the

espacio público: ciudad y ciudadanía,

emblematic socio-cultural behavior.

Barcelona, Electa, 2003 19. According too François Ascher, 14. See id.

metapolization is one of the big changes that characterize this third

15. See Le Corbusier, «Principios de

modern urban revolution. In his view,

urbanismo», en La Charte d´Athènes,

“metapolization is a double process of

Barcelona, Ariel, 1971. According to

metropolization and creation of new

Le Corbusier, «houses give bad shelter

kinds of urban territories. It can be

to families, they corrupt their private

defined as the attempt to concentrate

lives, and the disregarding of vital

human and material richness in the

needs, both physical and moral, bears

most important agglomerations. It

poisoned fruits: illness, decadence,

is mainly the result of globalization

rebellion. Evil is universal: in cities, it

and an increased division of labour

is apparent in an overcrowding that

at a global scale, which make more

makes them a prey to disorder».

and more necessary and competitive those urban sprawls offering a

16. Bauman, Zygmunt, La

broad and diversified labour market,

globalización. Consecuencias

high-level services, a great deal of

humanas, Buenos Aires, Fondo de

equipment and infrastructures, and

Cultura Económica, 1999, p.31

good international communications”. Ascher, François, Los nuevos

17. Beck, Ulrich, Qué es la

principios del urbanismo, Madrid,

globalización? Falacias del globalismo,

Alianza, 2004, p. 56.

respuestas a la globalización, Barcelona, Paidós, 2004, p. 30.

20. See Augé, Marc, Los no-lugares. Espacios del anonimato, Barcelona, Gedisa, 1993

21. See Ascher, François, Los nuevos

to appropriate, organize, and ensure

Margaret Crawford vs. Michael

arquitectura y del urbanismo. Editorial

principios del urbanismo, op. cit.

urban life in public space. See

Speaks. Michigan Debates on

Poseidon, Barcelona 1978.

Ascher understands modernity not as

Hiernaux, Daniel, “Los imaginarios

Urbanism. Volume 1. 2005

a state but as a process to transform

urbanos: de la teoría y los aterrizajes

society. In his view, “you could even

en los estudios urbanos”, EURE, v. 33,

30. See Crawford, Margaret, Chase

say that modern societies differ from

nº 99, Santiago de Chile, August 2007.

John and Kaliski John, Everyday

37. Gorelik, Adrián, La grilla y el parque,

Urbanism, New York, Monacelli Press,

other societies in that change is

aforecited, p. 58. 38. Id., p. 167.

1999.

their fundamental principle […]; they

27. Terminology is Jean Baudrillard»s.

organize themselves by installing

He calls these events “places of

change, progress, project, in the core

seduction”, “because in their dual

31. Diaz Moreno Cristina, Garcia

of their operating dynamics”. Id., p. 21.

character the object is confronted with

Grinda Efrén, “Una conversación con

the real order, the visible order that

Jean Nouvel”, Revista Croquis, Espana,

22 Hajer, Maarten, Reijndorp, Arnold,

surrounds it. In the absence of such

2002.

41. Id.

In Search of New Public Domain.

confrontation - which has nothing

Rotterdam, Nai publishers, 2001,

to do with interactivity or context - it

32. see Borja, Jordi y Muxi, Zaida, El

42. Railway terminal stations Retiro

p. 24.

does not take place. An accomplished

espacio público: ciudad y ciudadanía,

(north) and Constitución (south) are

space, i.e. that exists beyond its

op. cit.

examples of this urban identification

39. Id., p. 165. 40. Id.,

system based on the architectural

23.See Borja, Jordi, Muxi, Zaida, El

own reality, is a space that gives

espacio público: ciudad y ciudadanía,

rise to a dual relationship, a relation

33. Munford Lewis, «The city in History:

op. cit.

capable of withstanding deviations,

its origins, its transportation and

monumentality.

contradictions, even destabilization,

its prospects». Nueva York. Harcort

43. Neighborhoods like La Boca, San

24. See Lefaivre Liane «Ground-up

but bringing face to face the

Brace Jovanovich. 1961. p.421.

Telmo, Palermo, Liniers, and others,

city. The place of Play» in Lefaivre,

pretended reality of a world and its

Quoted in Gorelik Adrián, “La grilla y

illustrate the influence of urban myth,

Liane y Döll, Heinrich, Ground-up City

radical illusion”. Baudrillard, Jean,

el parque, espacio público y cultura

by linking and differentiating socio-

Play as a Design Tool, Rotterdam, 010

Nouvel Jean. Los objetos singulares,

urbana en Buenos Aires 1887-1936”.

cultural aspects, on the construction

Publishers, 2007

arquitectura y filosofia. Fondo de

Universidad Nacional de Quilmes.

of the city.

Cultura Economica”. Buenos Aires

Buenos Aires, 1998

25. See Lindon, Alicia, “La ciudad

44. Gravano, Ariel, Antropología de

2001. p. 18

y la vida urbana a través de los imaginarios urbanos”, eure, v. 33, Nº

28. Jacobs, Jane, The death and life of

99, Santiago de Chile, August 2007.

great American cities, Vintage Books

34. See Gorelik, Adrián, La grilla y el

lo barrial. Estudios sobre producción

parque., aforecited

simbólica de la vida urbana, Buenos Aires, Espacio, 2003, p. 15.

Editions, New York, 1992

35. Id.

this everyday dimension, made up

29. Crawford, Margaret, ‘Everyday

36. Le Corbusier, Precisiones.

of little things, as a particular way

Urbanism’, on Everyday Urbanism,

Respecto a un estado actual de la

45. Id., p. 12.

26. Daniel Hiernaux understands

46. Id., p. 13.

47. Baudrillard, Jean, El otro por sí

space', Globalization urban form and

e integración de villas y barrios

This social fantasy is where the

mismo, Metamorfosis, metáfora y

governance, exploring collaborative

carenciados de Capital Federal,

“ghetto” as an urban concept is

metástasis, Barcelona Anagrama.1988

urban strategies 12, MI Carmona &

aforecited

growing. This is because the sense of

M.D. Schoonraad. Delft University of 48. Muxi, Zaida, La arquitectura de la

Technology.

ciudad global, Barcelona, Gustavo Gili, 2004, p. 149. 49. See id.

54. Id. 55. Ciccolella, Pablo, “Globalización y

security given in their own values of 60. Sosa, Catalina, “Cumbia villera,

the “we” -as a community-, improves

fenómeno popular?” Música made

the exclusion and the fragmentation

in la villa, in http://www.elortiba.

as urban imaginaries. See Lindon,

org/cumbiavi.html#Cumbia_

Alicia, “La ciudad y la vida urbana

villera_¿fenómeno_popular

a través de los imaginarios urbanos”,

dualización en la Región Metropolitana 50. See id.

de Buenos Aires. Grandes inversiones

eure, v. 33, nº 99, Santiago de Chile, 61. Ib.

August 2007

y reestructuración socio territorial en 51. Cravino, María Cristina, “Las

los años noventa”, EURE, v. 25, Nº 76,

62. Lighessolo, Luis, 1992, quoted

organizaciones villeras en la Capital

Santiago de Chile, December 1999.

by Cuenya B. In Programa de

Federal entre 1989 – 1996. Entre la autonomía y el clientelismo”, Text

radicación e integración de villas 56. La Nación newspaper. 30-04-04

prepared for the 1st virtual conference

y barrios carenciados de Capital Federal, aforecited

of Anthropology and Archealogy (www.

57. Giménez, Mabel y Ginóbili, María,

naya.org.ar/congreso), October1998.

“Las villas de emergencia como

63. See Bialakowsky, Alberto

espacios urbanos estigmatizados”,

y Reynals, Cristina, 2001

52. From the report on new municipal

Bahía Blanca, Universidad Nacional

“Hábitat, conflicto social y nuevos

policies for villas de emergencia

del Sur, 2003, HAOL 1 (Spring 2003)

padecimientos”, Seminario

by Beatriz Cuenya, Programa de

p. 77.

Internacional “Producción social del

radicación e integración de villas y

hábitat y neoliberalismo. El capital

barrios carenciados de Capital Federal,

58. Margulis, Mario, “Las villas:

de la gente versus la miseria del

Municipalidad de la Ciudad de Buenos

aspectos sociales”, in Borthagaray,

capital”, Montevideo,

Aires, Programa de las Naciones

Juan Manuel, Igarzábal de Nistal,

Unidas para el Desarrollo, United

María Adela y Wainstein-Krasuk,

64 . This fears and distrust with the

Nations Program for Development,

Olga, Hacia la gestión de un hábitat

“other”, is one of the urban imaginaries

1993.

sostenible, Instituto superior de

that most has determined the

urbanismo, territorio y ambiente”,

evolution of the Latin American Cities,

fadu-uba, 2006 p.45

because it is in the sense of security

53. Pietsch, Susanne, 'Changing urban actors. New phenomena of the popular

given by the own values of the “we”

sector in contemporary Buenos

59. Alicia Ziccardi, 1977, quoted by

were the exclusion and fragmentation

Aires and their presence in urban

Cuenya B. In Programa de radicación

of the urban context is been defining.

Chapter gh

Methodological Considerations

It can be said that the forces that emerge from the margins of society have the capacity to transform peripheries into settings for urban opportunities. Despite the serious social and ecological problems of these areas, their self-generating capacity has the potential to generate a kind of re-insertion in the formal context of the city. However, how can this opportunity of peripheries be approached in scientific terms? What kind of methodology is suitable to shape the desired (and demanded) transformations? When in 1933 a team of researchers, lead by the Austrian psychologist Paul Lazarsfeld, tried to investigate the socialpsychological effects of unemployment in the small town Marienthal nearby Vienna, they not only acted as neutral scientists, keeping distance from the object of their research, but they intervened into the research field by organizing the collection of clothes, medical consultations, support in education and sport events, in this way supporting the unemployed people during the research process and at the same time getting more detailed and better information about the living conditions of the people. The study, published under the title «Die Arbeitslosen von 65 Marienthal» became a milestone in social sciences, establishing a new type of empirical research that later has been interpreted as 66 «participatory observation». The researcher in this type of research becomes biased, actively intervening in the field of research, supporting the objects of research, in this role however also getting access to information that otherwise would not be accessible. Participatory observation is, in a slum upgrading process, the way to recognize in the neighborhood, the existing "under way" urban project.. «The Participatory process improves project design and effectiveness through organized expression of demand, which allows a project to access to local knowledge, which helps take all relevant factors into account in the solutions proposed

by a project. It enhances the impact and sustainability of projects through demand expectations and responsiveness, which is key in enhancing financial sustainability and local ownership of projects… It contributes to overarching goals such as good governance, democratization, and poverty reduction by building local capacity to interact with authorities and other stakeholders to further common goals establishing clear channels for community participation in decision-making, and giving people the opportunity to influence the 67 actions that shape their lives. Closely connected to the idea of participatory observation is the concept of «action research» that was first formulated in 1946 by 68 Kurt Lewin. Lewin developed the methodology of action research as comparative research, focusing on planned social interventions and resulting in social transformations (or changes of behaviour within groups of people). In Lewin's words «social management proceeds in a spiral of steps, each of which is composed of a circle 69 of planning, action, and fact-finding about the result of the action.» The repetitive cycle of planning, action, and measuring results he describes in three steps as: 1 – Unfreezing: where new demands and needs are recognized. 2 – Changing: where new models or concepts are explored and become applied. 3 – Refreeze: when new situation becomes evaluated.

In the meantime, the action-research model of Lewin has emerged as a significant methodology for intervention, development 70 and change all over the world. In particular for the (planned) transformation within communities or groups of people action research became an important issue.

Model of Action-Research Process source: Lewin, Kurt (1946), Action research and minority problems. Journal of Social Studies. Issues n째 2 (4), MIT. Boston. USA.

Input

Transformation

Output

Planning

Action

Results

Preliminary diagnosis

Learning processes

Changes in behavior

Data gathering

Action planning

Data gathering

Feedback of results

Action steps

Measurement

Action planning

UNIFREEZING Feedback Loop A

CHANGING

REFREEZING Feedback Loop B

Feedback Loop C

This approach is what makes it possible for the architectural project to be a materialization or representation of the values in the community experience. The fundamental methodological concepts of action research partly have been applied in an earlier projects of urban intervention in marginal settlements in Buenos Aires. The projects apply paradigms of «intervention» stemming from a holistic conception of the urban whole, based on the articulation of social, economic, and cultural opportunities existing in the neighborhood. The strategy is not then a fixed final design; but the development of an implementation process, that can produce, in new forms of urban coexistence, the capacity of the community to implement gradual transformation. The starting point is then a research of what already exists. Based on this, the projects could shape and consolidate, in new places, the pre-existing network of social, economic, and cultural activities. As a result, the created new places could turn into centrality focuses that would articulate integration processes, both internal and with the surrounding context. The example presented here permits us to understand a project for a marginal area as an alternative way of intervening in the city because it tries instead to introduce a new approach to the relationship between the inhabitants and their environment, through which new focuses of centrality and belonging can be generated. The «villa» (slum) would become then a «barrio» (suburb), restarting the dynamics of integration and differentiation between peripheral and central spaces, in which each fragment of the city establishes a dialogue of identity and change with the rest.

It is worth mentioning two cases of urban strategies in marginal settlements one in Río de Janeiro, Brazil, the other one in Medellin, Colombia, which, to some extent, are paradigmatic of the kind of project we propose. Implemented by the city council of Río de Janeiro between 1993 and 1996, the “Célula Urbana” [Urban Cell] project was an action programme designed to integrate poor areas of the city using the opportunities provided by the informal context. The purpose of this experience was to insert, connect and strengthen marginalized areas by creating new centers for urban, economic, social, political and environmental development as microdevelopments of multi-use space. The intervention was financed with joint funds — public and state— and was aimed at housing improvement as well as to organize and make cultural activities, small businesses, and entertainment activities economically viable. The central aspect of the project was the search for sustainable architectural solutions, preserving the values of the community’s urban scheme of that time. The Favela-Barrio [Slum-Neighborhood] project (1994), also implemented by the city council of Río de Janeiro, followed similar lines but on a larger scale, becoming a crucial point of reference as regards to slum urbanizations. The intervention was based on three main topics: to keep the residents in the area they were occupying; to include community development components, public health, and environmental education; and to regularize the public space in the area.

The proposals for improvement in infrastructure and social services, as well as the programmes for creating employment were actively supported by the residents in the area. As a result of this programme the following effects were observed: –Improvement in quality of life standards of the residents in the neighborhood and the surrounding area. –Improvement in health conditions. –Increase in the value of the residents’ houses. –Decrease in risk in most vulnerable groups. –Improvement in technical tools and competitiveness of the residents through work training, increasing their chances to find a job and even to reach certain saving capacity.

Another internationally recognized example is the transformation of the city of Medellin in Colombia. Since 2004 Medellin, a city of 2.3 million inhabitants, has developed a public management and project operation model, along with policies and programs of urban planning, education, social and cultural development, that through their consistent application have permitted improvements in the quality of life for the city’s inhabitants. The program is structured in a way that addresses the physical dimensions of a city, social issues as well as institutional matters through integrated urban projects. It involves the articulation of municipal government actions, the construction of public space and community infrastructure, housing programs and the promotion of appropriate state-led projects. The development of 5 principal aspects constitutes the base of the model:

♣ –Public space in order to encourage citizen interaction and the strengthening of coexistence, as well as to bring dignity and identity to neighbourhood areas. –Housing to promote socio-spatial integration and environmental sustainability, with the aim to achieve quality of life improvements. –Community infrastructure in order to strengthen and engender a peaceful coexistence, a shared citizen culture and to discourage violence. –Protection of natural ecosystems and environmental productivity in the consideration of ordered growth of urban land. –Transport and mobility infrastructure so as to improve communication networks, understanding mobility as a system that combines vehicular flow and pedestrian needs in a balanced way. In Buenos Aires the project developed by the Laboratory of Morphology of the Faculty of Architecture, Design and Urbanism of the University of Buenos Aires aimed also to create and approach methodology and a general method for planning and socio-spatial management in the Villa 31 in the Retiro Neighborhood. Immediately adjacent to the dense area of Retiro is one of the oldest and biggest informal settlements in the city: the Villa 31. This villa de emergencia, with a population of about 30,000 people, is an icon in the social and territorial conflict of Buenos Aires. Its strategic location in the city (and on the route that links the north area with the southern highway and the access route to 9 de Julio Avenue) determines a clash of interests that has meant a historical controversy about its existence. Over decades, the Villa 31 has suffered several attempts of eradication (most of them in a forced and violent way), which has turned the villa into a symbol of struggle by the villero populations to keep their dwelling places. From the

Villa 31, Buenos Aires Mater Plan Source: J. Fernandez Castro

attempts for its final eradication during the last military dictatorship to the municipal project in 2005 for its consolidation and conversion into a traditional neighborhood, the Villa 31 has defended it’s right to exist for more than 60 years. The project directed by Professor Javier Fernandez Castro proposed a strategy that would take the existing dynamics of the place, trying to reinforce the characteristics that define it as an integrated neighborhood. In order to do this, the aims are: – To avoid the division of the city in order to facilitate connectivity – To guarantee accessibility to all places by increasing their linkages – Not to move inhabitants out of their dwelling places, in order to preserve the existing social bonds (except for those cases in risk areas, or when clear areas are to be created so as to make cohabitation possible). – To respect the history of each constituted place and the investments made by each inhabitant with his/her own effort. – To open up new areas in the existing urban fabric by introducing buildings and spaces. – To re-articulate and re-qualify the urbanistic environment – To get community involvement by listening to their demands, setting the difference between stated and latent demands. – To give raise to new centralities, and to maximise the potential of existing ones so as to increase 71 connectivity.

Buenos Aires Metropolitan area and Vincente Lopez Municipality, Source: F. Janches

In 2002, as a curriculum activity in the Faculty of Architecture, Design and Urbanism at the University of Buenos Aires, an intervention exercise was carried out in the villa de emergencia Las 72 Flores, in the Municipality of Vicente López. Vicente López is located in the first peripheral ring of the metropolitan area outside of the central city zone, north of the metropolitan area of Buenos Aires. The northern sector of the city is traditionally the area with more economic resources and a lower rate of social and territorial conflicts. The district is nonetheless not homogeneous, and borders on the Municipality of San Martín to the southwest, a densely populated area that faces a social emergency characterised by extreme poverty and low access to resources, services and infrastructure. This southwest end of Vicente López, inhabited by industry workers who work in San Martín, is the district»s area of marginality. The villa Las Flores has approximately 50.3% of the villera population of Vicente López district. According to the 1989 census, 1270 families lived there in an area of 8.2 hectares. In a mixed urban context –industrial and residential– of low density, this population constitutes an island of intensive land-use with an average density of 950 inhabitants per hectare. The villa is located on Constituyentes Avenue, a rapid transit road that constitutes the formal border between the two mentioned municipalities. Widening works of this avenue produced a low density and low-turnout area, because of the irregularity caused by housing eradication. This, together with the presence of the Belgrano Hospital, increases the isolation of the settlement from an integrated urban context. The role of the avenue is also the main access point to the villa on account of the numerous public transportation lines that utilize it. The most private limit of the settlement is Melo Street, used almost exclusively by the villa dwellers. It is the commercial street par excellence, its location being highly valued both economically and sentimentally by the community. Today it is the main center for 77

Villa Las Flores slum, Vicente Lopez Photo P. Navone

social exchange and leisure. Haedo Street, which separates the formal neighborhood from the informal one, has changed with the expansion of informal housing along parts of it. As a result, the formal neighborhood built a dividing wall that turned the external space into a semi-public space, mainly a meeting place for the young, connecting the inside of the villa to Constituyentes Avenue. This wall dividing the houses in the villa from the ones in the formal neighborhood is a materialization of the troubled coexistence between respective regularity (formal) and irregularity (informal) in each area. Passageways run across the villa: those running a north-south direction keep the features of streets with houses almost in a line, neat front yards, and more activity; the ones that run transversely in an east-west direction, are short and winding, linking the main passageways one with another or being interrupted by houses that have seized this public space. Some meeting spaces in the villa have developed around public water intakes. ÂŤformalÂť playgrounds and meeting places have been occupied by house extensions, or the settlement of new families. This explains the present lack of recreational places for both children and teenagers; with the tree-lined Roca Street being one of the few places left for leisure, walking and social gatherings. Inside the villa, the main urban landmark is the church located in the continuation of Havana Street, built by the villa inhabitants themselves. The church is the geographic and symbolic center of the settlement. The aim of the academic project was to design integration strategies for the villa by using public space as a community cohesion system. The team sought to understand the settlement characteristics and history of the place in order to facilitate the introduction of new elements that would be capable of changing the course of their development. At the same time, it was sought

Villa Las Flores and urban city context. Source: F. Janches

to emphasize the settlement»s identity as a fragment of the city, dignifying it and «providing a space» for existing opportunities.

that defined the structure, scope, programs, and scales of the new belonging and integration system. The work directions were:

The project focus was set on a specific area that was meant to take on a role as a starting point for the existing physical, economic, social, and cultural of this particular settlement.

1. Development the settlement borders to: – build an inside-outside integration system; – develop urbanity focuses with shared centralities; – build multiple events linked in a singular circuit; – break the urban discontinuity; and – delimit the system of accesses and exits so as to build a social integration system

The project focus on urban and social pre-existences involved in depth research using a multi-disciplinary approach, understanding multiple viewpoints in order to decode the singularity of the urban fragment to be intervened. Each work team developed a program taking into account the physical, social, and cultural conditions of the place, as well as the conclusions drawn from the workshops and multi-disciplinary meetings with professionals directly or indirectly related to villas de emergencia. Working on pre-existing singularities adds a proposed dimension to the urban planning work, as the reading itself of the context makes the project take form. This comes from planned or unplanned agreements that have correlated in the urban scheme. These opportunities are therefore a way to support and improve the urbanization process in progress. In a kind of dialogue that feeds back, the mapping process allows us to understand some of the real and potential attributes of the context, unlike in projects conceived as finished ideas to be applied from scratch. Evolutionary transformation was a guiding concept of the project as well. The different proposals have sought to approach the villa from the singularity of individuals fragments, so that progressive changes can arise from a minimal initial modification, following later the course established by social interaction. The start of these change processes depends on the different events and locations selected, which have different physical, economic, and social opportunities. The intervention was oriented in three main directions 80

Each of the borders in the villa Las Flores has specific factors determining its boundary character. The rhythm produced by the urban structure, building, or transportation systems strategically places each border in a social context. Whether it be the preexistence of apartment blocks on Melo street which create a physical frontier difficult to get through, the clash of social tissues in a scheme of single-family housing where there»s no possible room for cohabitation, the front on Constituyentes Avenue, or the empty border kept in reserve for a supposed future continuity of the housing plan, the borders constitute a complex system of combinations that, whereas separating today two juxtaposed societies (internal and external as regards the villa / formal and informal), can also in turn, by being used to create social and physical bridges and integration channels.

2. Implementation of minimum physical scale and multiple activity programs in the inner scheme so as to: – define minimal scale intervention systems according to opportunity degrees; – use time factor as a contagion and transformation system; – reinforce existing social bonds;

Plan, Villa Las Flores grid Source fadu - uba Studio Ciudad Formal - Ciudad No Formal 2003

1 Plan, new system of public spaces along the border of Villa Las Flores Source: fadu - uba Studio Ciudad Formal - Ciudad No Formal 2003

2 Plan, new system of public spaces in the Villa Las Flores grid Source J. Fontana, M. Bergoglio fadu - uba Studio Ciudad Formal - Ciudad No Formal 2003

3 Plan, new system of connectors in the Villa Las Flores grid Source E. Barone, A. Sanvame, J.Waldman, FADU - UBA Studio Ciudad Formal - Ciudad No Formal 2003

– build small-scale inner public spaces; and – introduce insertion nodes for service systems.

network, because each part of the polycentric model depends its future in the success of the system.

A work approach that divides the social conflict into minimal cells of small groups with strong community cohesion allows a possibility of coordination. In these fragments comprising groups of houses and a limited number of families, public micro-spaces would be created on a small scale, acting as formative spots as well as points of environmental improvement. They would be administrated by the group itself, and, gradually applied in all the land area, in this way they would constitute a real network of public spaces.

3. Creation of sequences of dynamic public spaces on longitudinal and transverse axis for crossing and inside-outside connection so as to: – allow for infrastructure networks and assistance services to access the villa; and – build the continuity of inside-outside links and, through the movement»s homogeneity, stress the democratic character of road links.

This kind of progressive consolidation of small-scale public spaces would strengthen the population by bringing a sense of belonging to a social group and to a specific physical environment. Besides, its adaptability to the physical and social possibilities in each group allows the expansion by contagion: new groups can develop their own public spaces from observing the advantages of these kinds of places meant for neighboring groups, so the network expansion is self-generated.

Works are based on the construction of axes for crossing or partially entering the villa, which reinforce the dynamic axes offered by the spatial disposition of the settlement and by the flow directions determined by the pre-existing uses of the space. These movement systems based on sequences, superposition, and paths of internal centrality define a new urban network inside the settlement.

In a close interaction between with the community, the design can define the opportunities of each fragment, in terms of space, programs and image. In this way each group are involve in the complete transformation of their immediate new environment. But its success does not depend just on its own dynamics. But in the continuity of the network. The network of these (semi) public spaces, of has two main goals, the development of the internal infrastructure that will serve each of the small public spaces with water, sewage, drainage and electrical services and also to improve in the interconnections between spaces, the process of urban transformation and integration of both inside the neighborhood and with its surroundings. These goals are the results that guarantee the continuity of the

The described experiences contributed different conclusions, in terms of methodological process and design paradigms. The core conclusions are discussed below.

This action as a research approach is then essential, because it recognizes the continuous changes of demands and needs of the social conditions, the evolution of the discipline, methods and models of urban interventions.

1. Place-specific Design. 2. Design as a methodological research tool. Although social situations and conflicts are similar at an urban or even a global level, proposals should be specific for a local area. The process of participatory and self-managed recovery first requires a reaction from a concrete analysis of social and idiosyncratic features of the neighborhood in question. The preceding case studies are based on specific and pre-existing conditions. Both projects base their proposals on existing social structures, to ensure that the posterior evolution and self driving development of the neighbourhood will be mostly spontaneous and self-managed. The projects also aim to encourage communication inside and outside the neighborhood, among different communities, as a way of integrating and stabilizing the intervened areas and its surrounding context. The purpose is then to promote not only the morphological dimension of the settlements but also the existing values and opportunities inside the neighborhood, as well as its relation with the environment. To recognize and interpret data, project design involved a multi-dimensional reading process in the dialogue with the inhabitants, the government and the urban environment. The empirical research developed in the mapping and exploration process, also gives the general and specific evaluation parameters regarding how each project can be measured according to its social and physical characteristics. New data can be corrected (adapted, modify, improved or ignored) producing, in the new step, the ÂŤspiralÂť (using Lewin's concept) a transformation and integration process.

The design process is the way to recognize, in the simulation of future scenarios, new ideals of urban intervention. It is essentially because of it's feedback with reality that the project can identify, in design parameters, an urban transformation process. It is possible to recognize in Las Flores and Retiro projects different logical and perspectives of this design approach. On the one hand, Las Flores experience is defined by different smallscale projects each one considered as an independent proposal, but generating in their synergy between their unplanned tranformations. Although the projects are independent from one another, they can in many cases interrelate in order to make the new inner urbanity more versatile. This open design method allows, in the volumetrically multi-dynamic condition of the project, a division of many programs according to time and financial constraints and also to be adapted, modified and abandoned when the socioterritorial condition of the area run against the premises of the project. The different workshop groups undertaken, concerning the periphery or the middle of the villa, present a dynamic process with a limited project scale, that establish in the previous reading of the urban conflict specific aims for each stage of the project. On the other hand, the Retiro project is the best example of how a research project is working in a participatory observation and action research method. Defined in multiple meetings with community members and internal organizations, the project was always

conceived, as a master plan made from community needs. In this way, the design projects the image of what the inhabitants wants and is the document that the slum dwellers use in their discussion with the city government in order to ask for improvements in their environment.

4. Time as a project tool.

3. Public space as a catalyst for transformations.

The application of open strategies enables us to project transformations as tendencies and flows, and not as predictable results. Instead of projects proposing concrete and final formal solutions, the concept of strategy makes it possible for us to design an intervention with initial guidelines defined from specific or possible circumstances about the place and the people, but whose proposals will later experience modifications set by the use, transforming, adapting, reinforcing, or even ignoring elements of the project.

Public space has the potential to resolve infrastructural and environmental conflicts as well as address social and cultural needs in the villa. That is why the use of public space as tool for urban transformation can modify the levels of association and build relationships in the neighborhood. In the participatory framework of the project, improvements in the environmental conditions allow the development of social interactions that lead to consensus, building a sense of community and identification with the area. In both projects public space is the key design element in order to improve the existing or latent community network system. In this way the new places -with cultural significance for the communityemphasize the settlement's identity as a fragment of the city, dignifying it and «providing a space» for what already exists. This way, public spaces encourage, through a change in the image of the area and enabling re-subjectivity of its identity the sense of belonging to a community. From this imaginary and focal point, it is possible to define «us», a notion where the «barrio» can establish a symbolic relationship of differentiation among the community areas and other places in the city. The values of the ordinary and extraordinary everyday events, are thus the dimension from where it is possible to reinforce or modify the imaginary of both the neighborhood population and the external context.

Conceived on the basis of its posterior development, urban transformation considers time and socio-cultural modifications as relevant factors in the definition of the project, which has to be flexible enough to support them.

65. Marie Jahoda, Paul F. Lazarsfeld,

72. Credits. Arquitectura III Faculty

Hans Zeisel (1933), Die Arbeitslosen

of Architecture – University of

von Marienthal. Ein soziographischer

Buenos Aires. Professor Architect

Versuch. Published as book in 1975,

Jorge Lestard, Associate Professor

Frankfurt am Main.

Architects Mederico Faivre, and Flavio Janches, Assistant Professor

66. Harvey, R. Bernard (2006),

Architect Maria Jesús Huarte,

Research methods in Anthropology.

Teachers Architects Ramiro Schere,

Qualitative and quantitative methods.

Diego García, Roque Frangella, Carlos

Lanham Ma.

Galíndez, Joaquín Moscato, Javier Ugalde, Anabella Rognoni, Deborah

67. Imparato, Ivo and Ruster Jeff Slum

Rodríguez, Maria Amuchastegui, Inés

upgrading and participation.

Lovisec, Maria Paz Montes, Natalia

Lessons from Latin America.

Abot. 2002

Directions in Development. The World Bank, Washington D.C. 2003 68. Lewin, Kurt (1946), Action research and minority problems. J. Soc. Issues 2 (4), p. 34 – 46. 69. Lewin, Kurt (1958), Group Decision and Social Change. New York, p. 201. 70. See under more: Reason & Bradbury (2007), Handbook for Action Research. London. 71. See Jáuregui, Jorge Mario, Estrategias de articulacion urbana, Buenos Aires, Ediciones fadu, 2003.

Chapter h

Practical Experience

The slum problem is rooted in the deficiencies of social and economic structural conditions. However, it is within these settlements that creative strategies for everyday life constitute, even if in a precarious way, physical structures of positive social relationships as well. Because of these «existing forces for regeneration», marginal settlements are not places involved in a perpetual slum condition; they are already in an –following 73 Jacob’s concept- «unslumming» process. Based on the understanding of this capacity of slum dwellers to act upon their own self-interest, the aim is to use these existing forces for regeneration to develop a process of transformation and integration through a network of public space. In order to capitalize on some of the urban values, the premises that guide the project entail the development of each urban fragment that characterize and identify the community with the place. But the final result is not the urban design itself, but the way the inhabitants adapt it according to their own expectations. The changes, defined in superposition of activities (existing or new) are therefore starting points to recover, in a new community organization, the integration between people and place. Following these general aims, the project is the result from both the interview data and the exercises with community members and municipal technicians in order to define in a socio-territorial diagnosis of the neighborhood, the program and the places, that are going to be transformed, according to diverse valuation parameters in line with physical location and possible combinations and by its own inertia for sociocultural linkages. This bottom-up approach recovers the social role of the urban design process, allowing the inhabitants to accept what it is introduced in the area as if it is were already part of it and the designers to recognize and use the existing opportunities in the socio-cultural dynamics of the neighborhood. 88

The urban design strategy is oriented to provoke, in an action/ reaction interdependency process, the improvement of the existing plans for urban development and the strengths of the civic awareness of the community. This is why the effectiveness of this strategy depends on a participatory method that allows, according to expectation and ambitions of the inhabitants, to recognize opportunities for urban transformation, to evaluate future scenarios and to develop sustainable urban designs. Is this participatory process what allows, according to for the World Bank 74 report , «to recognize local knowledge, to define a long-term impact and to overcome paternalist.» But urban projects in general, and particularly those on urban reconversion of marginal areas, quite often respond to initiatives and motivations external to the community. These projects formulated as ideal forms, define not only their own space and functions modifying areas with different scales and conflicts. They are often «intruder» initiatives in a sense, bursting from the outside into the context to be intervened. They are a planproject-ideal that cannot avoid in their results a certain «stranger» 75 condition with regards to the context. This production of actions, paraphrasing the Julien François’s words: «…intervene at a certain moment, not at another: is always local and momentary, its incidence is precise, and as it intervenes in an arbitrary and isolated way, it stands out and emerges producing events. That’s why being spectacular is counterpart to its little influence on reality, 76 being at the same time arti and super-ficial…» This external nature of the action has strong effects. By entering into urban life, it breaks the natural scheme of things, disturbing its internal coherence and imposing somehow violently the unilateralism of its own proposals. It is what frequently generates the resistance or reluctance (reactions), which end up weakening 77 its original aims. These unexpected reactions resisting the project enable us to understand why local aspects stimulated by the same actions produce different reactions according to the different pre-

existing conditions, turning proposals that had been successful into anonymous or negative results. Some contemporary urban centers, designed in line with already globalized patterns of urban development, provide clear examples of these actions conceived irrespectively of possible local reactive interactions. There, within the economy driven development of the 78 global level , the city is considered as a standard product to be sold, a pre-established format set by ongoing global consumptionmodels, whose users want to be among equals and outside the urban context. The design process that results in the creation of such centers ignores all kinds of pre-existence, environment, or social dynamics. That is why there is no room in their work methodology for enabling spontaneous changes nor for unexpected reactions to be taken into account. The same process can be seen in many Argentinean social housing projects. In spite of their completely different social and ideological aims, these projects often share with those of the globalization enclaves the total omission of the social pre-existences, and therefore of possible reactions produced by the latter faced with the design’s «intruder» action. So, projects are usually finished designs intended to establish all the bases for a future life in the neighborhoods constructed, in a «total control» utopia, which ignores the pre-existing community dynamics and forcefully encourages alternative uses of the urban device being offered. This leads the urban product to failure, since the alternative uses emerge in spaces lacking flexibility to absorb them resulting gradually in the damage of the spaces created and producing marginal environments. In our view, the way to avoid this problem is to take into account the «reaction» from the start as a key element in the project process. As an action, the project must be conceived as a part in a constant transformation process in which the project's aims

are linked with the natural evolution of things, including possible later developments in the urban complex to be intervened. In the research work about the pre-existences, a diagnosis of possible future developments is made, and the project is just an attempt to guide the future reactions in a desired direction. From this perspective, actions are simultaneously a product of «influence and integration, and they cease to be personal, direct, and momentary to position themselves instead in a system of trans-individual transformation, extended in the continuity of its temporal duration. Self-transformation and transformation of others are equally 79 progressive, one being a consequence of the other». Time is therefore a key element in the design of this transformation process: the duration and the different stages that the urban complex will presumably pass through are taken into account as factors in the project, which is consequently conceived as flexible and adaptable to foreseen and unforeseen modifications with the object of reinforcing or changing some of the predefined actions. The urban project can operate in this dialogue between action and reaction, understanding the importance of local and subjective structures for constructing urban symbols and myths, determining its identity. The aims in the urban design process are then not only what has been built but also the changes produced by the sociospatial evolution itself in the non-defined roles, relations, and limits between centrality and periphery. It is in this continual actionreaction scheme where the urban project can exert its influence on the city by managing the transformation process in marginalized areas. Urban design in the villas can therefore be produced through systems that stimulate the inertia and the existing or potential growth forces in order to reinforce, in its own dynamics, the sociospatial articulation capacity. Is important to see this action/reaction strategy as strengths of the villa population, and use it as key element in urban design, which seeks to reinforce the organization of the villa and its civic awareness.

Project as an action

Non predetermined reaction to the

on local residents

project as an action

Source: F. Janches

URBAN ARCHITECTURE ACTIONS

defined by political economical social and cultural influences

change:

-Urban uses systems (ordinary and extraordinary events)

-Urban form systems (continuity and discontinuity of the urban grid)

provoque:

-New roles,

-New limits between centralities and peripheries

RE-ACTIONS TO URBAN ARCHITECTURE ACTIONS by residents

IDEAL IDENTITY CONDITION OF BUENOS AIRES CITY

change pre-determined uses into their:

-Urban uses systems (ordinary and extraordinary events)

-Urban form systems (continuity and discontinuity of the urban grid)

provoque:

-New roles,

-New limits between centralities and peripheries

and

-desire or un-desire results

-accepted or un-accepted results

FRAGMENTARY IDENTITY CONDITION OF BUENOS AIRES CITY

Project as a reaction Source: F. Janches

ACTIONS defined by political economical social and cultural influences

change:

-Urban uses systems (ordinary and extraordinary events)

-Urban form systems (continuity and discontinuity of the urban grid)

provoque:

-New roles,

-New limits between centralities and peripheries

RE-ACTIONS TO ACTIONS by residents

NEW URBAN ARCHITECTURE including residents re-actions to project

change uses into their:

-Urban uses systems (ordinary and extraordinary events)

-Urban form systems (continuity and discontinuity of the urban grid)

provoque:

-New roles,

-New limits between centralities and peripheries

and

-desire or un-desire results

-accepted or un-accepted results

IDENTITY CONDITION OF BUENOS AIRES CITY

Plan Buenos Aires, metropolitan area, Avellaneda municipality, and Villa Tranquila neighborhood Source: F. Janches

The Villa Tranquila experience follows this approach, basing its urban project on a complex dynamic of small urban activities recognized on certain existing elements characteristic of the daily reality of the villa residents. The identification of these existing habits and routines, both ordinary and extraordinary, enabled us to determine the general system of associations, tensions, contradictions, and balances in the settlement to be surveyed, as a result of which a possible process of evolution and transformation was identified. The de-codification of these pre-existing everyday life strategies was accomplished through an analysis process, classifying places with transformation opportunities according to physical and programmatic characteristics. The variety and complexity of the reality make it important to establish a rational process to analyze and define a diagnosis of each particular situation of each particular location and formulate strategies that fulfil the needs of an area. The sub-centralities that are defined and qualified by the inhabitant's appropriation of space, are then the real base for modifying an integral socio-spatial strategy to counteract in a clear open urban system, its own sociospatial fragmentation. In order to develop a diagnosis with a precise assessment, previously it was necessary to define the parameters that allowed us to understand the evaluated data (desegregated as well as relational). This evaluation system was organized according to hierarchies of values associated to physical and social conditions of place, such as nearest infrastructure, services and vacant spaces, extraordinary and ordinary activities, relational systems, flows and centralities, but also to capacities to establish a dialogue between disconnected areas inside the neighborhood and with the surroundings ones.

Plan Buenos Aires city center, Riachuelo river, Avellaneda municipality and Villa Tranquila neighborhood Source: F. Janches

The strategy then required the definition of an evaluation tool in order to compare existing or latent opportunities both in the place of work and the immediate context. In this particular project's case, these values were established through multiple meetings, exercises, and interviews with different social groups in the neighborhood, aimed at defining personal desires, aspirations and demands as well as the need of general programs and specific spaces that would mark the network of public spaces. The exercises, analysis, and diagnoses were developed by students and professors John Beardsley, Max Rohm, and Flavio Janches in the design studio «Non formal Buenos Aires: Public Space Strategies for Emergency Settlements», Harvard Graduate School of Design. The models used in these information-exchange processes enabled the construction of an urban cartography in which specific aspects of the work place (recognized or not, valuated or not, existing or potential) are reflected. The information search process included 80 the understanding of the following cognitive maps: Social map: to define a general scheme of relations and interactions among the different social organizations, trying to map the spatial dimension of these relations. Spatial map: to construct an inventory of spatial conditions, patterns, regularities and irregularities of the urban fabric, as well as a valuation of the natural and scenic systems in the settlement. These maps were based on three approaches according to three 81 different dimensions of the city: Territory city: the inhabitable spaces system, and their topographical, historical, and social delimitation; examples of this are the urban topographies, infrastructure and physical form,

the eco-system, the urban nature and emergent new ecology, the expansion borders and periphery. Dynamic city: the neighborhood constantly growing, with continuous expansions redefining forms and typologies in the urban settlement. Space can be approached through changing and multiple categories with different experiences capable of occurring together in the same place that are neither exclusive nor hierarchical (i.e.circulation systems, public space systems, quotidian, immigration/emigration . Event city: a formal reconstruction of the individual or collective life space from particular events or situations. These events have a thickness, a passion; they mix and clash, generating an urban scheme that can be used as a reference for the formalization of their supporting spaces. Examples: sports and their urban effects, festivities and celebration spaces, all kinds of celebrations (their origins and urban effects), music as a product, markets and fairs (i.e. the trade phenomenon as capable of generating city). The aspects evaluated as part of the mapping and exploration processes were: of a physical point of view: – specific context and surroundings. – analysis of the Villa urban structure – open space quality – spaces inventory – elements inventory of a socio-cultural point of view – analysis of mobility systems – analysis of activities – villa community members ambitions/ expectations/demands – use preference concerning program alternatives with different users

Interviews and photos: E.Betancourt, D.Kiss, K. Papadimitrodopoulos GSD, Harvard University

– use preference concerning space, everyday customs, main routes, etc. – map of the social network

Interviews were carried out for the evaluation of the social reality and its opportunities, through an insight into the population dynamics. These series of interviews have enabled us to get an insight into the population dynamics, everyday activities, systems of belonging, places to which a symbolic centrality is assigned, etc. Interviewees were people with roles in the neighborhood (like community leaders, for instance) and different life style situations. The sample, representative for this reason, should be considered as just a methodological example of interviews as a tool for design, 82 and could obviously be elaborated with further consultation. The interviews have been used to explore what Javier Auyero and Debora Swistun calls «the relationship between objective space and subjective representations (habitat and habitus).» This reveals the presence of a diversity of coexisting views and deeply held beliefs. The interviews allow us to understand unknown and unseen data, that describe and explain the causes and experiential forms of the 83 villa because they usually know something that we do not. With these interviews it was possible to determine: movement hierarchies and typologies, daily, weekly and year agenda of everyday and extraordinary events, distances and times of movements, scales, areas and agendas of programs and activities, access to services, internal and external institutions, potentialities, expectations and aspirations of communities and places. When planning the project, general and specific mappings of the programme objective were carried out in line with the project's approach. One of those mappings, defined through the interviews

and work sessions with different groups of children, enabled us to understand their space uses, preferences and demands. The aim of these participatory meetings was to gain an understanding of how children perceive the public space in their neighborhood and how they use it as a place for play. This local culture of play was the design basis for the network as well as for each play area. Some of the answers obtained referred to safe or unsafe places for play, their simultaneity or exclusivity, the interrelation between places for play and pre-existences in the neighborhood environment, the role of informality in the local culture of play, the determination of places for play, programs, kinds of play, play times and agenda, etc. Besides the specific activities with neighborhood children, meetings with groups related to the specific intervention spaces selected were organized. In those interviews, the places, needs, programs, activities, and schedules that could guide the project were defined. 84 Photographic interviews were conceived as «lay sociograms» , understood as a the diagrammatic representations of the ways in which young residents perceive their environment and it helped to understand and explain resident's real-life experiences. This mapping and exploration process allowed a definition of a spaces inventory organized according to its degree of pre-existing or potential centrality, its capacity of association with other places, the connectivity among its own centrality places, its particularities, values, etc. This way, each space is considered from its location, its physical space (both the built and the vacant areas), and its sociocultural associative networks. As it was explained, the recognition of the existent spaces of social cohesion is the starting a point, and tries to define in accordance with them the urban layout to be developed. In this sense, the external-internal transformation defines a process of compromise

Vicente Lopez st area project Photo: F. Janches

in which both contexts interact and integrate. The urban structure defined by these multi-actor and multi-scalar dynamic approach could give the inhabitants access to multitude of opportunities, providing equal access -spatial as well as non-spatial- to urban resources and coexistence of the diverse and the different. The project involved a process of recognition to define an integral socio-spatial strategy to counteract the process of socio-spatial fragmentation. The result is then an interdependent network that organizes and materializes (with alternative hierarchies and scales) the ways of social articulation based on its own internal synergy. Based on the opportunities and potential of the existing places, the project for Villa Tranquila aimed to try to repair community values, reinforcing the city character of this urban fragment, through a network of -new and existing- public spaces. This way, the new scheme generates in a safe structure a transformation with an impact not only in the specific projected places but also in their areas of influence. This public space network has the potential of socio spatial integration achieving territorial multi-sectorial ambitions. Via a process of recognition of the spatial needs and the appropriation of the space by the inhabitants, the polycentric model that conform the network perspective (spatially and functionally) build the engine of a new form on internal and external integration, determined firstly by the aspects of local identity. Is this logic of locally identified spaces-embedded into specific communal social networks, what allows positive transformation criteria for the poorer and most 86 disconnected areas of the city. It is under this polycentric structure where the «strange» or the «different» (in both scales city and neighborhood scale) could be socially and physically integrated via the development of a interrelation instead of an intra-relations, that is to say the development

87 of a social construction that does not separate but integrates. This is why the strategic premises are based on the active interaction of sub-centralities, centralities and movements in order to establish an operative functional links, from where the spatial demands and potentialities of each place (determined by the people used of it –as socio cultural expression) are recognized. This approach constitutes the entrance to reach better-correlated synergies that enable the implementation of negotiation integral 88 instances, base for a strategic inclusive planning framework. Then the aim is to provoke in Villa Tranquila, (according to opportunities in terms of space and programs, areas of influences and distances of movements), the development process of different scales improvements (in terms of infrastructures, accessibility, security and services) through the potential integrative capacities of its everyday dynamics. The existing vacant spaces, the integrative and connective opportunities (both inside and outside the space), and the preexistence of social, cultural, commercial, religious, or of any other natural structures capable of generating a potential focal point of new centrality were taken into account to define the location of the public spaces and their programmatic distribution. The project is based on a flexible and open approach, allowing for expansion and conversion in the years to come depending on the villa development and growth. The proposed strategy defines the scenarios and ways of programming rather than the precise definition of potential yet unattainable realities that cannot advance beyond the formulation stage. This is why the final results going to be the form in which the people adapt the project according to their expectation and quotidian way of life. Thus, the inhabitants themselves can revert the present process

Non-predetermined

Network of non-predetermined

transformation area

transformation areas

Source: M. J. Huarte

of decay and abandonment, not through only the architectural urban project proposed, but also by its transformation, once the construction is finished. This process of «non-predetermined evolution» is part of the proposal, since in its modifications, expansions, and adaptations are completed and bring to life the initial plan, which was nothing but an intervention strategy conceived according this later evolution. In this way the upgrade is not only in places where the project is built but also in unpredictable transformations in the intervened space and the surrounding areas. This facilitates an acceptance by inhabitants about what is being introduced in these marginal areas as if it was already part of it. This bottom-up approach also has a strong education potential; the inhabitants, being involved in the upgrading process helps to understand the benefits of the changes, how to take advantage of the new public spaces and the infrastructure implemented. In this way the urban intervention recovers its social role, understanding the dynamic of the territorial and urban context, with decisions based on the contributions of multiple actors, acting from what Joan Busquets understand as «the within…this will sometimes involve issues that are not straightforward or perceptible but which, if judiciously resolved, may contribute to improving existing spaces or carrying out developments with high 89 innovative value.»

Villa Tranquila Neighborhood Three scales of public spaces Source: BJC Blinder Janches & Co architects

100

The intervention is defined by respecting and complementing pre-existences. Incorporating new activities by promoting internalexternal integration, and by reverting internal fragmentation. This determines three social network categories. The first one is large scale or urban scale, made up of interconnective spaces: Located on the neighborhood peripheral lines, inter-connective spaces constitute nodes for activities shared by villa inhabitants and external population. Four main spaces of this scale are planned and expected, through their location logic, to activate advancement in each possible axis for development. Intervention is applied to the four peripheral areas in the villa in order to connect and integrate the settlement into the immediate context. So the spaces constituted in the villa-industry-residence-infrastructure transitional zone can create an open way for social interaction among communities.

are complemented with a system of passageways and streets interconnecting the operation of them all into a complex and interdependent network that, superimposed on the existing functional structures, generates project reactions not contemplated in the original plan. Following the distribution of this places strategy; the network defined several spaces that have the potential to create centralities of different hierarchies. These centers as urban attractors will be the programs that will identify the inhabitants within each place of the slum. The interrelation between each other and the differences built in their own logic is what will define the sense of belonging for each group of the community, as constitutive sub-centralities with their own identity.

The middle scale or institutional scale, made up of integrative spaces: These spaces are distributed inside the neighborhood, following the logic of the existing socio-cultural institutions. The new public spaces will thus be associated not only with a specific institution that will facilitate the new program to be sustainable in time, but also with the institutionÂťs urban area of influence, potentially making the process of urban transformation. The small scale or family scale, made up of ÂŤsupportingÂť spaces, distributed after the logic of family or affective associations and constituting easy control and maintenance semi-public spaces for committee size groups: Placed in the villa crossroads, these mini-infrastructures try to provide important everyday services contributing to a healthy public life. This three described categories of public spaces

101

Villa Tranquila is characterized by certain qualities that encourage its integration into the urban context. Those qualities could be seen from: 1. a political viewpoint and 2. a physical-territorial viewpoint. In the first case, the municipal government has put into action an urbanization program for the Villa Tranquila with the creation of the operations unit of the revitalization plan of the Avellaneda Central area, which has -according to data from the Villa Tranquila urbanization program of the Avellaneda Municipality, created by Municipal Decree N.565/04 of 23/05/04 and ratified by Ordinance N. 17705 of 10/09/04- the following objectives: – Improve living conditions of the Villa Tranquila inhabitants, – Create an urban planning code for the area, – Solve living condition problems of the population, – Deterministically and socially integrate the slum to the rest of the city, – Encourage development of small scale productive ventures, – Achieve growth of the neighborhood community centers, – Promote security improvements for the inhabitants and peripheral areas. The assignment of the Unilever site and facilities provides the necessary surface to build community facilities (health, education, sports, culture, and leisure) and acts as the incubator of smallscale productive ventures with the objective of generating genuine sources of work for the neighborhood’s inhabitants). All these programs are being developed by the Municipality Government. In addition, the neighborhood improvement program (promeba, Program for upgrading neighborhood) includes the opening of streets, construction of infrastructure and provision of basic utilities

102

(drainage, pavement, sewage, water, gas, electricity, streetlights, sidewalks). The consolidation of existing homes and the construction of new homes have enabled an important security of tenure and occupation of the land in favor of its present occupants, the subdivision of lots and property ownership regularization. In the second case it is necessary to consider – that the community is traversed by different railway lines that, although for freight trains, is easily adaptable to be a passenger train line. This train line could improve the transportation network because its rail system connects, the Retiro station, Puerto Madero and Boca neighborhoods, with the exchange train station in Avellaneda district. It would also be possible to develop a train station inside the Villa Tranquila neighbourhood, allowing the community to be connected by this new mass transportation system with the rest of the city – the closeness to main access and communication axes between Buenos Aires city and Avellaneda, – the closeness to urban centers in Buenos Aires city and Avellaneda, – the closeness to transfer centers, – the urban structure that, although not following the strict geometry of the traditional checkerboard diagram, shows a fluent relationship with the surrounding context for accesses, axis, and borders, – the relationship between what is built and what is not gives some information about the quality of spaces in the neighbourhood. The vacant areas can be also classed according to their environmental quality, the accepted quality spaces are those where the existing activities occur, whilst more problematic areas have a greater capacity to transform not only their specific space but also their surrounding context.

Villa Tranquila neighborhood daily routes and centralities based on interviews Source: D. Kiss, E. Betancourt, K. Papadimitradopoulos GSD, Harvard University

103

Villa Tranquila neighborhood social institutions network Source: Municipality of Avellaneda

104

Villa Tranquila neighborhood spaces that have the potential to create centralities of different hierarchies. Source: BJC Blinder Janches & Co architects

105

Based on this «poly» and «multi» physical and social condition of the network, in the particular case of Villa Tranquila, the main component of this public space network is that the integration opportunities that it proposes is defined by community activities organized for and by the youngest inhabitants of the neighborhood. «Games», of all sorts, qualify spaces allowing integration, according to their scale, spaces and communities involved, because they propose different ways of re-utilizing urban space in the context of tacit or predefined agreements of social co-existence. In the search of its own well being, the game creates community, bringing people together, and improving the quality of the space where it is created and developed. Play spaces have a specific strength in connecting people to communities, giving identity to public space. «Play» is then a fundamental component for human performances because it improves the adaptability and sociability of a specific social group. Henry Lefebvre asserted the right to the city as a place of pleasure and enjoyment. More precisely, he saw the city as the locus of festival. His purpose was to oppose everyday life and reorganize it until it is as good as new. A good city, like a good civilization, can 90 integrate play into its human and social fabric. Amsterdam playgrounds network, planned by the Municipality of Amsterdam and design by Dutch Architect Aldo van Eyck is the most well know urban project based in the «play and the youngest» as design tools for urban transforming. Conceived under the concept of what he called the «real of the in-between», the strategy for Amsterdam was defined on three main methodological aspects that characterize the process. They were not imposed by a top-down City Administration but as part of a people power participatory

106

process involving the citizens and the urban development department of Amsterdam. The play spaces were not placed on a piece of land cleared for that purpose but inserted in interstices within the living urban fabric, responding its location to people's demands and the availability of spaces and designed not as individual units, but as part of an extended polycentric network of playgrounds. In this way this polycentric net of micro urban villages in the existing functional city 91 was the way to create in people a sense of community. Play spaces centres proposed for Villa Tranquila are organized in terms of modular systems that facilitate its construction process, not only by its economy of resources but also by its adaptability to existing physical and social conditions. The spaces are designed as a self-made kit that can be redefined in terms of dimensions, materials and activities according to the specificity of the place and its opportunity to be built. These elements as a cellular organization can also interact with other elements defining places with different scales and programs. The nodes are built using a kit of parts that allow the original schemes been adapted to the scale, size, activities and budgets of each place and moment. This kit of parts can be easily removable, repair, modify, with economical materials that are capable of working on a small footprint. Another important aspect of this modular system is that is capable of building in steps with partial results. This is a fundamental part of this project because although the potential of the projects is in the interaction between internal and external public spaces, each project plays, as we explained before, an important role associated with the community that is influenced by it.

Playground network Source: BJC Blinder Janches & Co architects Max Rohm architect

For this reason, the community should always be involved along the design process of each project, because reinforce a sense of belonging and a social integration effect between people and public 92 space. Ayuero and Swistun describe, communities of informal settlements that «have a endless waiting time», because «they are constantly waiting for imminent programs that allow them to improve their life. This waiting is also related to a feeling of skepticism that can produce doubt, mistakes and contradictions about the project, its methods and its possible results.» This is why the projects are reduced to the least possible dimension, in order to realize them in a very short time period and extreme economy of resources, and also to distribute them as much as possible within the informal territory.

107

Villa Tranquila neighborhood playground network Source: BJC Blinder Janches & Co architects Max Rohm architect

108

A:BJ&C

Villa Tranquila neighborhood playground network Source: BJC Blinder Janches & Co architects Max Rohm architect

109

Villa Tranquila neighborhood new public space network and Vicente L贸pez area Source: BJC Blinder Janches & Co architects Max Rohm architect

110

Vicente López area Source: BJC Blinder Janches & Co architects Max Rohm architect

Some characteristics and consequences of the project have already been empirically proven. In the course of the present research, some of the planned strategies were applied in a real project experience. The aplication of the model designed in the research allowed not only the materialization of part of the proposal but also found new possibilities and opportunities that complement and add higher versatility to the strategy for integration and socio-territorial recovery. Specifically, part of the project received financial support from the Dutch foundation «Playspace», specially created to fund the building of multi-functional public programs defined in this project for children and adolescents living in Villa Tranquila. The budget available was not enough to carry out the entire project, so the decision was made to restrict the project area, focusing the effort on a part of the proposed inter-connective network instead of allocating the funds to scattered and unconnected spaces. In line with the foundation's principles, programs were aimed at the youngest members of the slum and the final proposal was consequently discussed, prepared, modified, and defined in weekly meetings with children, adolescents, and parents, who made up the future users of the public spaces. The first project was the Vicente López public space map that has a dimension of 2.500 m2 and is located in the southeast borders of the slum. The passageway and the small square on Vicente López Street are among the most abandoned spaces in the neighborhood, on account of sanitary problems, flooding, systematic garbage dumping, and general neglect. Added to this, the space has often been the scene of extremely violent situations.

111

Villa Tranquila neighborhood Vicente Lopez area before the transformation Photo: F. Berreteaga

112

Painting the mural, process

Source: “nosotros somos ellos

muralistas”

One of the first actions organized by the Municipality Government for this space was to transfer ownership of the area to the municipality through an agreement with the original land owner. Multiple meetings were organized with the youngest population, who had been an integral part of the whole process since the very beginning, with their point of view, proposals and criticisms being taken into account according to their age and gender. The Municipality Government coordinated the physical and social 93 aspects of the construction process. The construction process was organized in two steps; the first was with main infrastructure improvements, and concrete floors with a construction company. The second step, and of course the most important because it defined the future relationship between people and place, was the works organized by the people (parents and children) of the community. They assembled play elements, gardens, trees, soft floors and paint. The opening of the first playspace shows the strong interaction built during all the different projects, such as the mural, design, events and construction, between community and place. The identification of the area as part of their everyday life was already there, the place was not something new but an experience created by them. Of particular interest on account of its integrative effects was the mural painting. Still an ongoing activity, it has helped with the inclusion of highly marginalized adolescents. 94 The new mural dedicated to youth from the neighborhood that died in the area, victims of different forms of social violence, was completed on the square on Vicente López Street by the mural group “Nosotros somos ellos” (We are them). The aims were to recover a wall and use it to show part of the neighborhood identity. The project was singled out and funded by the Dutch foundation Playspace. The

113

Finishing the Vicente Lopez sq.

Enjoying the Vicente Lopez sq.

Photo: F. Janches

work team was coordinated by Edgardo Enrique (Gualy), an artist, with the assistance of Yolanda Rodríguez, community operator from the neighborhood, Nicolás Vitale, muralist, and Lorena Ramundo, social worker. More than 15 youngsters from the villa voluntarily joined the task, designing the picture, preparing the materials and the wall, and finally painting the mural. The tasks included preparing the wall and defining, jointly with the youngsters, the message conveyed by the mural. The design was then drawn on the wall and the painting, the central instance of the work, got started. In parallel with this, mural coordinators taught the youngsters different drawing and color composition techniques. Most of the youngsters never had an experience such as this one, and showed a strong commitment to the learning and the completion of the work. The mural completion project is a socio-community process with a medium-term and a long-term objective. The idea is to become a training space where youngsters can learn this trade, offering a new employment option and a new model for social linking. The results of the Vicente López experience were: transformation of this marginal area into a public space, inhabitant»s recognition and identification with the place, integration between different social groups of the slum and the integration of young people with social conflicts through a productive project within the society.

114

95 A second project is a The Sustainable Educational Center. The SEC aims to generate better living conditions and empowering the children, adolescents and young people of Villa Tranquila, who are 96 living in a state of social exclusion. Some key elements in assisting these populations to achieve a higher level of self-sufficiency are: 1) reduce the dropout rate (complete primary and/or secondary school, 2) reduce health issues through people learning about health care, use of clean water, and sanitation practices, 3) reduce substance abuse among youth, 4) reduce the incidence of violence to and by young, 5) reduce child prostitution, 6) get good jobs, 6) be contributors of society, 7) participate in their community, 8) reach their best possible development to move out of poverty To make this possible, we will build –in Villa Tranquila– an Educational Center for Sustainable Development with deeply innovative features in its conception, specifications and green technology aspects. – Install a training center to educate in socio- economic, health, education, and environment spheres. – Create a space for education, art and personal development. – Train and promote sustainable productive practices. – Teach and train the poor with livelihood skills for their sustainable development. – Connect the young community of the slum with external social networks. – Encourage personal development of the young people living in the villa – Development of programs, projects, and multidisciplinary research focused on the

conflicts in the urban marginality – Replicate the experience in other districts with similar socio-environmental circumstances

The Center will develop activities along four lines of action: 1. The Development of personal abilities of adolescents and young people as well as the whole community in Villa Tranquila from a well-rounded perspective that permits the insertion of these individuals into the labor market and society. 2. Social Assistance for the families, in order to encourage the adolescents and young people who participate in the Center their stability in the educational system. 3. Development of research programs and case studies on different topics about social inclusion, marginalization, social policy and sustainable development. This item will take place in association with Universities and other local and international Institutes. 4. Promote the use, knowledge and implementation of technologies that are environmentally friendly and «green». Specific training in these methods will be provided to the youth.

115

Villa Tranquila Educational Center Source: Business Plan: Municipality of Avellaneda, Social Inclusion Secretary, E. Yasukawa, F.Janches, C. Schneider, BJC Blinder Janches & Co architects

paneles solares S.U.M 185.0 m2

biblioteca 202.8 m2

aulas 200.0 m2

exposici贸n 185.0 m2 exposici贸n y talleres 301.5 m2

116

The project for Villa Tranquila neighborhood will rise to this challenge, not just building environments designed to protect people from the outdoor environment, but building an environment that will have significant positive impact on human health, performance and the natural ecosystem. By certifying the building under leed - Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (leed) Green Building Rating Systemâ&#x201E;˘ a third-party certification, this project will assure that the design process considers performance in five key areas of human and environmental health: sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection and indoor environmental quality as well as innovation. It is therefore the main objective of this project to transform the site into one, which respects the environment and is sustainable in environmental, social and economical terms. The creation of these projects entailed likewise the demand for particular functional requirements by new interlocutors in the neighbourhood. This improved in some cases the prospects of the future project, whereas in others it caused conflicts by opposing the programs and spaces defined in previous meetings by other groups. In spite of posing a problem, those conflicts were nevertheless especially enriching, as they proved the project's adaptation capacity that, without changing the strategic essence, this work methodology allowed. The presented project aspires to be an answer concerning to the urban project's capacity to have an influence on the reconversion of marginalized areas. In this way the series of starting points can be considered as preliminary answers for the capacity of the urban project to develop a strategy for transformation in marginalized urban areas.

1. The strategies of urban projects in informal settlements take, as a starting point, an understanding of the social, spatial and urban systems that organize the daily life of their inhabitants. The concept of the project as resultant from an action-reaction dynamic enabled us to understand the crucial role of the preexisting urban and social configurations in the design process for the project, with the latter seen as an strategy that only makes sense in the light of the evolution of the settlement, which was anticipated through the mapped pre-existences research undertaken. Urban mapping and social mapping methodologies, including the survey and the interviews carried out, showed us the relationship between the settlement pre-existences and the project designed. The information obtained from the mapping exercises was embodied in the project scheme in order to encourage and enrich pre-existing and established uses. Secondly, the kind of information considered as relevant concerned socio-cultural events that are part of community life in the settlement.

2. The project strategies try to formulate not only a permanent and unchanging model of spatial production, but also a network of socio-cultural events that, through its evolution, adaptation, and interaction will produce the process of recovery of the settlement's context. The dynamics and vital energy in those events provide a driving force of their own, a source for a constant evolution and development, which our project tried to bear in mind as development potential. For this reason, the design of spaces and situations reinforcing those elements has been experimented. Likewise, an intervention focused on events and places with symbolic power facilitates the strengthening of identity processes that

117

generate a belonging relationship between inhabitants and their environment, which is a central axis for the individual's social and civic integration. Thirdly, the progress from a «micro», almost home scale to a broader one comprehending the circulation axis of the settlement, as well as those that articulate it with the outside, permitted us to conceive our project as an «urbanity germ» which, in its development, can be scaled up. The reconversion of our area, precisely on account of its design being linked with the social dynamics in the settlement, suggests the possibility for the new form of «urbanity» to expand to neighboring areas.

3. The tool, and at the same time the main purpose of the project, is public space, since it is through this that a new form of interaction between slum and city can be generated. The object of our intervention has clearly been public space. When considering the information provided by the interviews as well as when focusing on socio-communitarian events, public space appeared as the most viable option for community bonds articulation (both theoretically and physically), and as the node from which an urban living in the settlement can be established. Our project did not approach the issue of «housing», as strictly understood as an adequate infrastructure for the private habitat (a characteristic approach for a whole tradition in social housing), but it tried to focus the reconversion of the urban starting from what's inherent to it: community spaces.

4. Rather than establish a definite design, the project aims to generate a process for a viable future evolution; for that, it must be flexible, that is, adaptable to the modifications and limitations that could come up through its development, and also to the use of the

118

urban environment by the inhabitants, as well as to possible budget constraints. Finally, and we'll insist on this at the end of these conclusions, flexibility and strategy, more than the concept of a finished project, have proven to be the biggest strength in the project. Mappings and project research were not at all used to produce an ideal project model; on the contrary, the aim was to generate urban situations from which to encourage a reactive development for a larger-scale integration and socio-spatial improvement in the settlement. The original plan, then, couldn't be anything but flexible in order to adapt to the requirements imposed on it by such evolutions. In short, we consider our project to have been successful as it has managed to redefine urbanity values in spaces lacking it, through physical and programmatic reformulation. We have tried to generate the possibility for public space to be appropriated by different social groups, so as to encourage, by using the new spaces' attractiveness and diversity, an accelerated process of socio-territorial reactivation. This approach of urban intervention offers an alternative way for architecture to participate in the city, as its proposals can not only physically and materially define the singularity expressed in the project, but they can also define its capacity for socio-spatial articulation, adaptation, transformation, and promotion of place as a socio-cultural experience. Thus, the understanding of the villa's systematic growth and the identification of the values in its pre-existences aspire to consolidate and strengthen the settlement identity as an active fragment in the city.

Vicente Lopez square neighbors voting for the square's name Photo: F. Janches

119

73. Jacobs, Jane, The death and life of

pure personal experience data (the

great American cities, Vintage Books

empirical position of the subject) with

Editions, New York, 1992

abstract and artificial conceptions of the geographic totality”. Jameson,

74. Imparato, Ivo and Ruster Jeff,

Frederic, El posmodernismo o la lógica

Slum Upgrading and Participation,

cultural del capitalismo tardío, op. cit.,

Lessons from Latin America. The International Bank for Reconstructions

81. These dimensions were defined

and Development, The World Bank.

by crossing the strictly architectural

Washington, 2003

approach with those of other disciplines in a workshop on urban

75. See Jullien Francois, Tratado de

mapping held in the Faculty of

la eficacia. La inteligencia de hacer

Architecture, Design, and Urbanism at

posible lo que parece inalcanzable,

the University of Buenos Aires (2004).

Buenos Aires, Perfil, 1999.

Professors in charge: Max Rohm, Flavio Janches. Assistant professors:

76. Id.,

Susanne Pietsch, Florencia Rodríguez.

77. See id.

82. This exercise was performed following the methods defined by Alijd

78. See Sassen Saskia, La Ciudad

van Doorn from Doll Lab. Rotterdam,

Global. New York, Londres, Tokio.

2005.

Buenos Aires, Eudeba, 1999 83. Auyero Javier, Swistun Debora. 79. Id.,

«Confused because exponed: Towards an ethnography of environmental

80. “A new cognitive map in the

suffering». http:eth.sagepub.com

most rigorous context of daily life in the material conditions of the city

84. Pierre Bourdieu's concept quoted

enables the individual to represent

in Auyero and Swistun, «Towards

his/her situation in relation with wide

an ethonography of enviornmental

and genuinely un-representable

suffering» aforesaid.

totality constituted by the city as a

120

whole. For this reason, the cognitive

85. For Kees Christiaanse ‘The Open

map demands the combination of

City is neither a utopia nor a clear-cut

93. This was organized by:

reality, but a situation, a balance

spatial integrative strategies base

between openness and closedness,

on the transformative potentialities

between integration and disintegration,

at implementing a polycentric

Municipality of Avellaneda

USA, A:BJ&C Buenos Aires Argentina,

between control and laissez-fair.[…]

metropolitan model.”. Aforesaid.

Buenos Aires, period 2003-2007

USGBC (United States Green Building

Mayor: Sr. Baldomero Alvarez

Council), WGBC (World Green Building

it is essentials for the emergent of

Kids foundation from Minnesota USA, YCC International, from California

a sustainable urban vitality to design

89. Busquets Joan, “A new lens for the

Director of public works and services:

Council), AGBC (Argentina Green

an accessible, integrated fabric of

urbanistic Project”, Jean Busquets

Ing. Jorge Ferraresi

Building Council), and the General

public spaces, traffic systems, and

and Felipe Correa. Cities X Lines , GSD

Under-director planning department:

Department of social inclusion from

communication networks to stimulate

Harvard University. Nicolodi Editore,

Arch. Gerardo Lopez Arrojo

the Municipality of Avellaneda.

the exchange of persons, goods, and

2006

Planning department: Arch. Felipe Miranda

96. Yasukawa, E., Janches, F.,

a critical balance has to be maintained

90. Lefebvre H, (1947) Theory of

Social Habitat department:

Schneider, C., (2009) introduction of

between density, combination and

Everyday Life, quoted at Lefaivre

Lic. Maria Marta Perez

the Lift Kids Villa Tranquila Educational

scale of program and social diversity…

Liane, Space, place and play.

the result will be social cohesion and

Or the interstitial/bybernetic/

Municipality of Avellaneda,

business plan, Buenos Aires, Los

security. This may be no guarantee

polycentric urban model underlying

Buenos Aires, period 2007-2012

Angeles.

of openness, but it does provide a

Aldo van Eyck»s quasi-unknown

Mayor: Ing. Jorge Ferraresi

breeding ground to strengthen positive

but, nevertheless, myriad postwar

Director of public works and services:

developments. Christiaanse, Kees, ‘The

Amsterdam playgrounds. On Aldo

Ing. Ariel Lambezat

Open City and its Enemies’ in Rieniets,

van Eyck the playgrounds and the

Under-director planning department:

Tim, Jennifer Sigler, Christiaanse Kees,

city. Edited by Lefaivre Liane, de

Arch. Magdalena Sierra

Open City. Designing Coexistence,

Roode Ingeborg. Stedelijk Museum

Under-director public ways:

Amsterdam, 2009

Amsterdam. Nai Publishers Rotterdam.

Ing Edgardo Peralta

p.45

Under-director of housing and design

knowledge…on the local scale,

Center for Sustainable Development,

department: Arch. Eduardo Hagopian

86. Carrión M. F. (2008) “Policentralidad: esencia de la ciudad

91. Lefaivre L. Ground-up city, The

plural”. Centro-h, Revista de la

place of Play, on Lefaivre L, Doll H.

Organización Latino Americana y del

(2007) Ground-up City play as a design

94. The mural group “Nosotros somos

Caribe de Centros Históricos.

tool, 0101 Publisher Rotterdam p.59

ellos” ('We are them') and more than 15 youngsters from the neighborhood

N.2. December 2008. 92. Auyero Javier, Swistun Debora. 87. Ib. 88. Sepulveda Diego, Janches Flavio (2009) “Explorations on socio

undertook the task.

“Confused because exponed: “Towards an ethnography of environmental

95. The Lift Kids Villa Tranquila

suffering”. Aforesaid.

Educational Center for Sustainable Development is organized by the Lift

121

Interview

Putting Into Practice Daniel Ojeda Interviewed by Flavio Janches and Max Rohm

122

fj: I would like to ask you about your ideas, to tell us how this place was used before the plaza was built, the changes you see, the things that could have been better. Anything that can teach us to see how to improve what has been done. do: In this place nothing had been done for 25 years. The place was used to burn stolen cars. It was abandoned, with open-air sewers, quite contaminated. The warehouse that borders the plaza was a soap factory that disposed of chemicals on the site. It was a smelly, dirty place. It was something that you didn’t want to see. Every day the same. And well, luckily the project was presented and since the plaza was built the neighborhood has changed one hundred percent. I am not saying that everyone is accustomed to the new reality, but I know this will change, people will change and there will be some notion of everything that was done in the neighborhood. It is good; it is good because at least we let them know that what they want can be done. It can

be done: with will and work, anything can be done. The passageways were also in a very poor condition. Dirt, rot, sewer discharge, everything at sight. Today you don’t see any of those. Everything is tubed, in its sewer. People now longer suffer the problem of floods in their homes. At the least they are happy with that.

And now as the majority is not here, the neighborhood is calmer. Before you couldn’t sleep because of the shootings. fj: Are the kids calmer as well? do: They are calmer because the kids don’t need to cross the street to go to a plaza.. They have the plaza here, they have fun here.

fj: And the security issue? It improved? do: There’s insecurity everywhere. Here it has improved a little. It improved in the sense that they don’t bring cars anymore, because we don’t give them place. But…yes, there’s still a little.

fj: It will last in time. do: Yes, it will continue. fj: (Laughs) Nothing was broken.

fj: There are no more floods. do: There are no more floods, no more smell. There are fewer rats than before, and no garbage. Thanks to the team of workers we have; we clean everything passageway by passageway.

that still have sheet metal. I was going to present a project to change the sheet for bricks. Today the plaza is OK. It only needs a couple of retouches but… as long as I get the materials, the plaza will go on.

mr: And the plaza is used by kids of all [the settlement] Tranquila or only of this zone? do: No, no, everyone who wants to come. They come from ‘La Lever’, the ‘Qunicho’ to play. They come to see their friends and stay to play ‘ball’ (soccer/ football). No, here the ‘placita’ is for everyone. Not only for this sector. When others come, the kids say, «—Ah, but you are from…» No, everyone has to play here. Sport is for everyone. It is not about being the owner. The plaza was made for everyone.

fj: At night?

fj: And what would you add or change?

do: Yes, at night, more at night.

do: I would change the houses

123

do: No. How long was the plaza expected to survive? Look, it has already been here for a year and six months. They gave it less than 2 months. Everyone who comes finds the plaza here and truly we didn’t give a dime for it. I am committed to take care of it and until now the plaza is OK. I keep quarreling with everyone, don’t think I’m such a calm guy. I see that they misuse something and start shouting at them. They have to take care of things. Because if they don’t we will go back to what it was before. They will destroy this, cars will be brought in here again, the kids will have to go to another plaza crossing streets, and it shouldn’t be that

way. People have to be more aware of the fact they have to care for the kids, that this place was made for them, so they are protected. And well, thank God, fortunately… I am a bit crazy, you know? I like to have all the kids there and that no one fights each other. And if they are doing something wrong, I try to go and say: «Look, you shouldn’t break the tree». Because first and foremost… thanks to that tree you can breathe. I teach them, and the kids now. They came here and helped me plant trees and distribute the crushed stone. I try to teach them, but I tell you there are two or three that drive me crazy. fj: And approximately how many kids come here? do: Well… in the afternoon, you can easily find around 150 kids here. They all interact and mix. They make such a mess! But they are happy, all happy. The plaza is to have fun, to play. Just as you see them now starting to gather, by 5 in the afternoon this is full. They play ball (soccer/ football), they gather on the bench by teams, they play, they

have fun. At night few stay behind because of the cold. But sometimes its midnight and they are here playing and shouting. It is great, it has changed 100 percent. fj: Thanks

fj: Our idea is to keep building and what we want is to realize the mistakes we made, maybe there’s something you can suggest: «do more of this, more of that, add something else…» do: No. Mistakes, why? fj: No… things that may be missing. fj: And here, what would you add? do: What would I add here? I would like to install some tanks, hanging tanks to play ‘horse’, you know? fj: To add to the play area. do: There, in that place. Right here you can’t add anything

124

because of the underground piping. Basically, fix the swings that are broken and… Here there’s not much to do, with what we have the kids… They don’t pay so much attention to the slide now. They run around. They climb and go down. It's not like the first days. The first day we had like 100 kids to go up there. On the slide. When it was just installed (before the inauguration), 4 hours later they were standing in line to go up, they drove me crazy, so I said, «O, go for it». The kids slid down and said: «we are charged, we are charged!» I told them: «How can you get charged if there’s no cable?» Obviously, it was magnetism caused by their hair: they slid down the plastic and when they came out they got a discharge. And I laughed and said: «no, it can’t be». So I went up, slid down, and got a hell of a discharge! When you get out, at the end the discharge hits you. So I told them «well, yes, you are right, but there’s no cable here. It is your hair that is charged». And they kept sliding down, but they put caps on, they didn’t

want any more discharges. And they were happy, laughing a lot. They waited for everyone to slide down and laughed when hit by the discharge. But this is all quite well kept. The swings need to be fixed.

The younger care for things more than the older ones! They go to my house and tell me: «Look there, Dani, the older kids have climbed on that game.» And I go with my mate (local tealike drink), I’m drinking mate, and tell them: «no, that is for the little ones. You don’t have to climb on that: 16 or 17 years is too old to climb there». But then I say: Well, its OK, I’ll let them, because why should I quarrel with everybody? No… mr: Are you alone with the maintenance work or is someone helping you out? do: No, no, I have 7 persons helping me. 3 women maintain the plaza and the 3 guys the street and the

passageways. The heavy things are taken over by the machos! No! I tell you that the girls are not afraid of using the shovel, eh. They have no problem with that. Luckily and thank God they pay attention to what I tell them. Because it is also good for them. fj: Can you tell about the other smaller plaza? I remember you telling me…that here there’s no place for the youngest ones. The small one that is near your home. do: There was a little triangle there. And all the bums gathered there. At night. Neighbors had to go out to ask them not to knock on their walls. They were about 20. They came on motorcycle and smoked marihuana. One day I woke up and kicked them all out. I told them: «Don’t come here to smoke pot». Kids play in that place. So I told them: «In this place you are not smoking marihuana nor bringing your motorcycles any longer». So then I had an idea: «I will build a small plaza, and I will see if I can find someone to help me build it». So next time I saw

Flavio I told him: «Flavio, I want to build a small plaza here». Thanks to this small plaza, I was able to able to kick out the 20 bums that came to smoke marihuana and were disturbing the kids. And thanks to it as well, the neighbors can sleep peacefully, because no one gathers there any more. Only the kids. At a given hour the plaza opens and now, in winter, at 8 pm it closes. I lock it. At a given hour it opens and at another it closes. And the kids already know. They let me know when they go back home: «we are leaving, close the plaza». It has its own illumination, so no one is bothered. Thank God, we were lucky to get rid of the 20 bums… fj: And the youngest ones go… do: Yes the youngest ones, the ones that couldn’t come here (the larger plaza). Now they go there. They play, they play many games.

church gave me? Those they were going to throw away, I put them here. So they go there, do their homework, and in the afternoon they start playing. So the kids are happy there. I always tell them: «The small plaza is to come and play. The age for using the games is from 1 to 6 years. The older ones can watch for the younger ones so they don’t get hurt. That’s all. I put up a little sign, and yes. Then they understand. The garbage goes in the trashcan. They eat a biscuit; paper goes to the trashcan. They have to keep the plaza clean. Dogs don’t go in. First and foremost because dog’s poop can bring disease. So no dogs allowed. I asked for a truck of crushed stone and laid it on the site. Because sometimes when it rained I couldn’t open because of the mud. But now they can play. They are happy! They are happy… We have to improve a couple of things to make it better. Did you see the drawings? The Gonzalez kid, Ariel Gonzalez, made them.

fj: And they do homework here? do: I put up the alphabet, the desks; you recall those the

fj: Yes, yes, the kid that draws. Is he going to art school?

125

do: Yes. He sometimes goes to the small plaza, and says: «is there anything to draw?» and I tell him: «there’s no place left». If it were for me, I would draw all Villa Tranquila. fj: And is there any place to make another small plaza? do: Yes, the one I sent you a photo about. It was there round the corner from Roca, you see? It is a sidewalk, more or less from here to there. There you have to take away the poles and fence that piece, there’s no plaza in that area. fj: You will continue doing plazas. do: Exactly. Thanks to the plaza and a little green, the kids have place to be. If not they would have to go very far. They would have to go to Mitre! Or go to Roca but they need to cross the street. No, no. They use the soccer fields but the park has no swings, all the play structures are run down. We should try to improve that plaza as well.

(Pointing to the mast and flag) One day I woke up a little crazy, it was a Saturday and I got the shovel and said: «I’m going to install a mast». I welded some iron bars. I put them this way at 7 am. The hole. A meter deep. We filled it with concrete with the guys, I made the small base and here you have the mast. fj: You also got the flag. do: The Municipality gave me the flag. And… I am happy with my mast.

going to pay attention to me but they are all here at 5, you see? «Lets lower the flag». And they stand in line, the fold it, with the sun looking up. I teach them everything. Because someday they will be flag-bearers at school and they will need to know. So I said: «Why shouldn’t I teach them?» You have to teach the kids everything. Except to break, you have to teach them everything. Yes.. There’s always 2 or 3 that break things but thank God, at least now they are a bit calmer. Everything is OK.

The kids climbed on the mast and I said: “No! Its still fresh!” And they ran from here to there. And here thank God we have the mast. There it is. Sometimes they cut the rope of the flag and I have to climb up to put it back. But no… At least… I thought the flag was going to get stolen. But no. They respect it. They respect the flag. At 5 pm the kids are already here, lowering the flag, I tell them the way to fold it. The flag doesn’t have to touch the floor when it is lowered from the mast. I teach them these things. I thought they were not

126

Appendix

128

Users And Satisfaction Interviews .

Questionnaire-survey after Vicente Lopez square transformation

Name

Oscar GutiĂŠrrez

Sandra

Anabella

And particulary for

It gives happiness to the

This gave new image to

It improve the physical

you and your family.

kids so they can play

Vicente Lopez. It also

space, as well as

wich are the square

give peace of mind

the children attitude

contribution to your

to the mother they do

towards it, as well

daily life?

not need to cross the

brought new people to

highway to find the

the area

playgrounds According to you,

Now our children have a

It was a garbage

what is the impact

place to play

disposal as well as a dismantled area for cars

of the New Vicente Lopez square to your neighbourhood?

before

Was an area to

dismantled cars, the

What were the

people used as well

activities that used

to hang and dry their

to happed here in the

clothes

Now the children have a

A place for leisure and

place to play

fun for the kids

square before?

after

129

Name

Abel Corvalan

Alfredo MartĂnez

Caballero Daniel

Gustavo Zacarias

And particulary for

It gave happiness

It gave joy, there are

It helps to the

It is a good leisure area

you and your family.

and joy to all the kids

quiet more people now.

integration between

for children, before were

wich are the square

here, improving unity

The kid have more fun

the neighbours and a

not safe that our kid

contribution to your

and friendship to the

so it improve the quality

healthy leisure activity

play there

daily life?

neighbours as well

of life of our children

as the sports are

According to you,

To all of us , mothers

Now my brother is

It is a living space to my

what is the impact

brought calm

seating there, in near

children

of the New Vicente

by and not in another

Lopez square to your

place, make me easier

neighbourhood?

to control him

As an area for

There were a garbage

It was a no one land

Was used for collect

dismantled cars ands

large disposal as well as

an empty area just a

garage were impossible

well for bonfires

a car disposal

garbage disposal , a

to habitat there because

activities that used

place to dismantled cars

was dangerous, as rains

to happed here in the

an aguantadero

was a sort of lake and

before What were the

very

square before?

after

Now all is more

Now there gathers a

Now is a very clear area,

Now everything s

peaceful, it help

lot of people to share a

with good lighting so

different, all is kempt

to improve our

mate or to play football

the children can play it

cleaner because

doesn't matter who late

was exactly what we

neighbourhood

neighbours wanted

130

Soledad

Lorena Acosta

Javier GutiĂŠrrez

Yolanda

Jacobo

A quiet better and

It is a great idea for

It was so different

It help to improve

It gave coolness the

beautiful space

the kids so they can

before it change for

the neighbours

place change

compare what it was,

learn more from each

good for the children

relationships. It gave an

a lot

more space for kids

other create a group

own space for the kids

mean more life here

belonging so they avoid

so also improve their

bad attitudes

sociability

Basically more joy to our

For me more

Before was an abandon

For me as well for my

children, at least they

contentment to my

brownfield, anew a

family a new place to

can play

children a near by place

recuperated space

share a mate and at the

to play, so they do not

for us

same time to see them

need to go far to have

play, help us to share

fun

more family momentsIt

It gave tranquillity

It was used to let car

They brought stolen cars

They used as garbage

It was a derelict space a

It was nothing but an

part, was a Brownfield a

and burn many stuff

disposal as well for

garbage disposal area a

empty and place no one

abandoned cars

place to burn things

land

The kids have fun nowy

garbage area

As a place were the kids

Well is a good idea, a

It is used by the kids

Well is a dignified

can have fun

place for the children

and they have fun there

square for the poorer

to share and have fun

kids their own space in

at the same time the

the neighbourhood

adults can play football so they do not think in taking drugs

131

Name

Luis

MarĂa

Micaela

Carmen

And particulary for

Improve the neighbours

Its help to improve more

I gave hope, and I

It contribute to enhance

you and your family.

joy its funny

interaction between us

would like more sports

kids joy , it is a better

activities for the kids

place

wich are the square contribution to your daily life?

According to you,

It brought peace as are

Because of the square

It add a new fun space

For me more peaceful at

what is the impact

play possibilities to our

many people from the

to my children

mind as know mu kids

of the New Vicente

kids

surrounding came to our

are at the square and

square in Vicente Lopez

not at the street which

Lopez square to your neighbourhood?

is no nice

before

That was an empty

Was a very dangerous

A junk, a car dismantled

A place were all the

place with no meaning

place with no lighting

area, a rats nest

garbage was thrown

For play and joy, to

Now there is more

There you can play, run

Now is quiet more clean

spend some leisure time

tranquillity

and think in sport which

we can have a mate

is quiet more healthy

there

What were the activities that used to happed here in the square before?

after

132

Claudio

Sandra

Ariel

Santa

Zulema

Improve our quality

The area is cleaner

It brought Joy and

The playground for kids

It contribute positively

leisure space for kids

at the square brought

to the neighbourhood

and adults

more fun for the kids

of life

Now I can bring my

Now the kids can play

Now my child can play

More fun for the children

Ease for me as my

children o the square,

more freely, I would

as I am seeing him,

and also cleanliness

childs play more outside

share more with them

like that them will also

make easier for me

improve other issues on

because I am seeing

our neighbour

him play

Was a garbage disposal

Was a place were the

Was a place with no use,

Before it was nothing

Before was an area to

mainly

grass growth, with no

I mean nothing good

but a garbage disposal

collect garbage and

light, many hollows, ugly

happened there

empty area with no good used

A place were the

An square with lighting ,

At least now the youth

Now with the square

children play

cleanliness a nice place.

have fun, they used

they have another view

we are quiet happy with

there every day

on the area, it can be

our square

It change a lot

maintained clean and its care by the own neighbours

133

Name

Roxana

Daiana

Maza Lorena

Sebastian Acosta

And particulary for

It allow our kids to play

It gave to us , the

It is as for the children

I help our children to

you and your family.

and have fun more

parents more tranquillity

fun, as well is an

play in a playground an

wich are the square

tranquil

as we know our children

improvement for the

not in garbage area

are savers in the square

neighbour as a whole

contribution to your daily life?

According to you,

Now my children came

Improve the hygiene

Help to improve our

Now my own children

what is the impact

back hope happier they

of the area, now I can

neighbourhood

as well as my youngest

of the New Vicente

really have fun there

seat there on the new

brothers have an own

Lopez square to your

benches and enjoy a

place to play and have

neighbourhood?

mate

fun

before

A morass with large

An empty area, was

amount of waste

really grimy

A morass with no life

Simple a disaster place

A place to play and enjoy

A place for our kids,

You see there more

The children rally have

where to have fun so we

people and basically

fun there, now I see

the adult feel safer

is used for the kid to

quiet more people which

have fun

before never show up

What were the activities that used to happed here in the square before?

after

134

Claudia

Hugo Mlina

Luis

Marcelo

Patricia

It distinguish our

It help to improve more

It gave tranquillity and

The area change a lot,

It brought a place for the

neighbourhood against

the activity on the are

improve the cleanliness

there was no water here

children to play

the other on this area

bringing joy to the

before

children

For us brought more

I walk more in the

Security feeling as well

quality time as we

area because with the

as cleanliness

spend more time at the

pavement I do not soiled

square

my shoes

A big waste are were

A place to throw waste

Nothing but a mud a

receive garbage and

an empty place

junk and even were no

then were it were burn

Improve our quality of life as we share more at that space with my kids

A total morass

A large junk

A much better place

A better place

running water there

Now the kids can enjoy

We can bring there our

It is seriously cleaner

the space and mingle

children

and there is more

with other kids

Better hygiene

security

135

Name

Ariel Orona

Fide

Lucia

Natalia Pintos

And particulary for

It help us to share more

There are quiet more

It brought happiness,

It brought happiness

you and your family.

with our neighbours, by

children here now

for the kids as well for

and fun to the

wich are the square

sharing a Mate or just

the adults, to help us

neighbourhood

contribution to your

to chat so improve our

to go on

daily life?

relationships as such

According to you,

Now we have a place to

I hope that my children

Help to pull together our

Peace as the children

what is the impact

intermingle a place to

will used more, play

family

play more

of the New Vicente

share a mate with the

Lopez square to your

friends

Was a place with no use

An empty place with

an empty area

no use

neighbourhood?

before

It was a un-paved street

As a place for bonfires

were the people leave What were the

garbage, abandoned car,

activities that used

when rains was really

to happed here in the

muddy

square before?

after

Now we can practice

To play, to play football,

There it is possible to

For play, fun and leisure,

sports and the kids have

and having mates

play and to share a mate

pure happiness

a place to play

136

with the neighbours

Luis

Veronica Acosta

Angel

Nataly

Nicolรกs

It brought more people

It seem a place more

It was a dream come

It gave tranquillity

It renew the children

into the area and more

alive, more bright quit

true

and happiness to the

spirit enabling betters

joy to our children

more beautiful

neighbours

plays as well improving the contact of each other

More tranquillity

Now with the nearby

Much more tranquillity

Mainly serenity as we

It gave no just a nice

square tour children

to the area

know our children and

place for our kids also

safer as they are outs

for us as we chat with

can play more with no danger

A place for junk

A garbage disposal area

each other more

garbage disposal

to collect junk

It was a car dismantled

We used to dismantled

area , was used to

car and motos or to fire

collect garbage as

old things

wellas

You can go out there,

Because is clean our

It help us , the

it is used for the kids

We used the square to

have a nice mate and

children can play there

neighbours to know

to play football, used

play a little football or

each other betters

the playground and as

just to seat and share a

a place to share a mate

cigarette with friends

enjoy with the family

with the neighbours

137

Bibliography

Arendt H. (1958). La condición humana, Buenos Aires, Paidós, Buenos Aires, 2005, Ascher F. (2004). Los nuevos principios del urbanismo, Madrid, Alianza. Auge M. (1993). Los no-lugares. Espacios del anonimato, Barcelona, Gedisa. Auyero J. (2007). Claves para pensar la marginación, introduction to Parias urbanos. Marginalidad en la ciudad a comienzos del milenio, Loïc Wacquant, Buenos Aires, Manantial. Auyero J. Swistun D. Confused because exponed: Towards an ethnography of environmental suffering. http:eth.sagepub.com Baudrillard J. nouvel J. (2001). Los objetos singulares, arquitectura y filosofia. Fondo de cultura economica. Buenos Aires Baudrillard J. (1997). El otro por sí mismo, Anagrama, Barcelona, Bauman Z. (1999). La globalización. Consecuencias humanas, Buenos Aires, Fondo de Cultura Económica.

152

Beardsley J. Rohm M. Janches F.

Busquets J., Correa F. (2006) A new

Converti R. (1994) Ciudad y futuro,

De Certau M. (1984) The practice of

(2005). Non Formal Buenos Aires,

lens for the urbanistic Project. Cities X

Arquis, Nº 1, Universidad de Palermo,

everyday life, California, University of

Graduate School of Design, Harvard

Lines, GSD Harvard University. Nicolodi

Buenos Aires, enero 1994.

Califronia press

University, profesores

Editore. Conde O. (1998) Diccionario

De Sola Morales I. (1995)

Beck U. (2004). Qué es la

Bureaou of Rio de Janeiro city

Etimológico del Lunfardo Buenos

Diferencias. Topografia de la

globalización? Falacias del globalismo,

administration, (2003). From removal

Aires, Perfil Libros,

arquitectura contemporanea. Lugar:

respuestas a la globalización,

to the Urban Cell. The urban-social

Barcelona, Paidós.

development of Rio de Janeiro slums,

Cravino, m. c. (1998) Las

Special Social Communication,

organizaciones villeras en la Capital

Diaz Moreno C., Garcia Grinda E.,

december 2003.

Federal entre 1989 – 1996. Entre

(2002) Una conversación con Jean

la autonomía y el clientelismo, Text

Nouvel, Revista Croquis, Spain,.

—. (2000) Libertad o capitalismo, conversaciones con Johannes Willms, Barcelona, Paidos

permanencia o producción. GG. Spain

Carmona M., Health t., Oc t., Tiesdell

prepared for the 1st virtual conference

s. (2003) Public places, Urban spaces,

of Anthropology and Archealogy (www.

Foque R. (2000) On the trae Meaning

Bialakowsky A., reynals C.

the dimensions of urban design,

naya.org.ar/congreso), October1998.

of Research by Design. Research

(2001) Hábitat, conflicto social y

Oxford Architectural press.

nuevos padecimientos, Seminario

by Design. International conference. Crawford M., Chase J., Kaliski J.

Faculty of Architecture Deflt University

Internacional «Producción social del

Castells, M. (1973) La Question

(1999) Everyday Urbanism, New York,

of Technology in co-operation with the

hábitat y neoliberalismo. El capital de

Urbaine. Francois Maspero. Paris

Monacelli Press.

eaae/aeea. Novermber 1-3-2000. The

Ciccolella P. (1999) Globalización y

Cuenya B. (2001) A decade of proposal

la gente versus la miseria del capital», Montevideo, 2001.

Netherlands. dualización en la Región Metropolitana

and debates around the management

Franca E., Diniz M. T., Collins M.,

Borja J., Muxi Z. (2003) El espacio

de Buenos Aires. Grandes inversiones

of the Retiro Project. Buenos Aires

Hasegawa T., Brillembourg A.,

público: ciudad y ciudadanía,

y reestructuración socio territorial en

1991 – 2001, Globalization Urban Form

Klumpner H., (2008) Informal Toolbox,

Barcelona, Electa

los años noventa, EURE, v. 25, Nº 76,

and Governance, Fifth international

slum lab paraisopolis, Prefeitura

Santiago de Chile, diciembre 1999.

Conference, TUDelft.

da Cidade de São Paulo, Secretaria

Ciccolella P., Mignaqui I, (1999)

—. Programa de radicación e

University Graduate School of

Prólogo a La Ciudad Fomal. Nueva

integración de villas y barrios

Architecture, Planning & Preservation.

Brillembourg A., Feireiss K.,

York, Londres, Tokio, Buenos Aires,

cadenciados de Capital Federal,

Brazil

Klumpner H. (2005), Informal city,

Eudeba.

Caracas case, German Federal

Davis M. (2006) Planet of slums,

Garcia Canclini N. (1999) La

Cutlrual Foundation, Prestel

London, New York Verso

globalizacion imaginada, Buenos

Borja J. (2003) La ciudad conquistada, Madrid, Alianza Ensayo.

Municipal de Habitacao, Columbia

Aires, Paidos estado y sociedad.

153

—, (2004) Diferentes, desiguales

Hiernaux D., (2007) Los imaginarios

Janches F., (2003) De lo no dicho en la

Janoschka M., (2002) El nuevo

y desconectados. Mapa de la

urbanos: de la teoría y los aterrizajes

ciudad. Revista SCA. Buenos Aires

modelo de la ciudad latinoamericana:

interculturalidad, Barcelona, Gedisa.

en los estudios urbanos, EURE, v. 33, Nº 99, Santiago de Chile, agosto 2007.

Gobierno de la ciudad de Buenos

fragmentación y privatización, eure, v. Janches F., (2003). Ciudad formal

28, Nº 85, Santiago de Chile, diciembre

– Ciudad no formal. Estrategias de

2002.

Aires, Secretaria de Planeamieto

Imparato I., Ruster J., (2003) Slum

integración, Busqueda del metodo

Urbano y Medio Ambiente, (1997 -

uprgading and participation, Lessons

Ediciones Blinder, Janches & Co.

Jauregui J., (2003) Estrategias de

2008) Environmental Urban Plan,

from Latin America, The International

Buenos Aires

articulacion urbana, Buenos Aires, Ediciones fadu.

Bank for Reconstruction and Gorelik A., (1998) La grilla y el parque.

Development - The World Bank

Janches F., (2004). An Urban Project in the informal settlements

Jimenez N., Ginobilli M., (2001) Las

Buenos Aires, 1887-1936, Buenos

Jacobs J., (1961) The death and life

of the city of Buenos Aires. The case

villas de emergencia como espacios

Aires, Universidad Nacional de

of great american cities, New York,

of Villa 31 – Retiro. In Carmona, M,

urbanos estigmatizados. Universidad

Quilmes.

Vintage Books

and Schoonraad, M. (Ed.) Gobalization,

Nacional del sur. haol 1 (primavera

Urban Form and Governance. Alfa-

2003)

Espacio público y cultura urbana en

—, (2004) Miradas sobre Buenos

Jahoda M. Lazarsfeld P, Zeisel

Ibis Fifth International Conference

Aires, historia cultural y critica urbana,

H. (1933). Die Arbeitslosen von

Proceedings. DUP, Delft

Buenos Aires, Siglo veintiuno editores

Marienthal. Ein soziographischer

Argentina.

Versuch. Published as book in 1975.

Janches F., and Sepulveda D.,

posible lo que parece inalcanzable,

Frankfurt am Main.

(2009). Explorations on socio-spatial

Buenos Aires, Perfil.

Jullien F., (1999) Tratado de la eficacia. La inteligencia de hacer

integrative strategies. In Rosemann,

Gravano A., (2003) Antropología de lo barrial. Estudios sobre producción

Jameson F., (1991) El posmodernismo

J., Lei, Q., and Sepulveda, D., The New

Le Corbusier, (1933) Principios de

simbólica de la vida urbana, Buenos

o la lógica cultural del capitalismo

urban Question. Urbanismo beyond

urbanismo (artículo 8 de La Charte

Aires, Espacio.

tardío, Ediciones Paidós

Neo-Liberalism. Papiroz. Delft.

d´Athènes), Barcelona, Ariel, 1971.

Hajer M., Reijndorp A., (2001)

—, (1998) Sobre los estudios

Janches, F., (2010). Designing Urban

—, (1930) Precisiones. Respecto a

In Search of New Public Domain.

Culturales. La cultura y la libido grupal.

opportunities. Games and integration.

un estado actual de la arquitectura

Rotterdam, Nai publishers.

en Estudios culturales. Reflexiones

In ReVista: Harvard Review of Latin

y del urbanismo. Editorial Poseidon,

sobre el multiculturalismo, Buenos

America. page 23, Cambridge, MA,

Barcelona 1978.

Aires, Ediciones Paidos

Spring 2010.

Harvey. R (2006) Research methods

Lefaivre L., Doll H., (2007) Ground-up

in Anthropology. Qualitative and quantitative methods. Lanham Ma.

—, (1998) El giro cultural,

City Play as a Design Tool, Rotterdam,

Escritos seleccionados sobre el

010 Publishers.

posmodernismo. buenos Aires, Manantial

154

Lefaivre L., De Rodde I., Aldo van Eyck

Munford L., (1961) The city in History:

Prefeitura da cidade da São Paulo,

Rosemann J., (eds.). Permacity.

the playgrounds and the city, Stedelijk

its origins, its transportation and its

Secretaria de Habitacao, (2008)

Papiroz, Delft.

Museum Amsterdam, NAi Publishers

prospects. Nueva York. Harcort Brace

Habisp Mapeando a Habitacao na

Rotterdam

Jovanovich.

Ciudade de São Paulo, São Paulo

Rosemann J., Lei Q., Sepulvda D.,

Bodarini Arquitectura e Urbanismo

(eds.) (2009). The New urban Question,

Levebvre H., (1970) The urban

Municipality of Avellaneda

revolution, University of Minnesota

(2004) Villa Tranquila. Programa de

Prefeitura da cidade da São Paulo,

press, Minneapolis, London

urbanización de la Municipalidad

Secretaria de Habitacao, Elisabete

urbanism beyond neo-Liberalism, Papiroz, Delft.

de Avellaneda. Decreto Municipal N.

Franca ed. (2000) Guarapiranga, Urban

Sassen S., (1999) La Ciudad Gomal.

Lewin K. (1946). Action research and

565-04 del 23-08-04 y ratificado por

and environmental rehabilitation in the

Nueva York, Londres, Tokio, Buenos

minority problems. J. Soc. Issues 2 (4)

ordenanza N. 17705 del 10-09-04

city of São Paulo.

Aires, Eudeba, 1999.

—, (1958) Group Decision and Social

Municipality of Buenos Aires city

Prefeitura da cidade da Rio de

Silvestre G., (2003) El color del

Change. New york.

(1993) Programa de las Naciones

Janeiro (2003) From removal to

río. Historia cultural del paisaje del

Unidas para el Desarrollo, United

the urban cell, the urban-social

Riachuelo, Colección las ciudades y

Nations Program for Development.

development of Rio de Janeiro slums.

las ideas, Buenos Aires, Universidad

Special Social Communication Bureau

Nacional de Quilmes – Prometeo 3010,

Linch K., (1960) La imagen de la ciudad, Buenos Aires, Ediciones Infinito

Muxi Z., (2004) La arquitectura de la

of Rio de Janeiro City Administration.

ciudad global, Barcelona, Gustavo Gili. Lindon A., (2007) La ciudad y la vida

Sosa C., Cumbia villera, fenómeno Prevot Schapira M., (2002) Buenos

popular? Música made in la villa, http://www.elortiba.org/cumbiavi.html

urbana a través de los imaginarios

Pietsch S., (2005) Changing urban

Aires en los años »90: metropolización

urbanos, EURE, v. 33, Nº 99, Santiago

actors. New phenomena of the popular

y desigualdades, eure, v. 28, Nº 85,

de Chile, August 2007.

sector in contemporary Buenos

Santiago de Chile, diciembre 2002.

Aires and their presence in urban

Sorkin M.,(2004) Variaciones sobre un parque temático. La nueva ciudad

Margulis M., (2006) Las villas:

space, Globalization urban form and

Rosemann J. (2001) The Conditions

americana y el fin del espacio público,

aspectos sociales, en Borthagaray,

governance, Exploring collaborative

of Research by Design in Practice.

Barcelona, Gustavo Gili.

Juan Manuel, Igarzábal de Nistal, María

urban strategies 12, MI Carmona &

In: Van Ouwekerk, Rosemann (eds.).

Adela y Wainstein-Krasuk, Olga, Hacia

M.D. Schoonraad. Delft University of

Research by Design. Proceedings A.

Zizek S., (1998) Reflexiones sobre

la gestión de un hábitat sostenible,

Technology.

Delft 2001 p.67

el multiculturalismo. La ideología

Instituto superior de urbanismo, territorio y ambiente, fadu-uba.

subterránea. Paidos Prefeitura da cidade da São Paulo, Secretaria de Habitacao, (2008) Urbanizacao de Favelas, a experiencia de São Paulo, São Paulo Boldarini Arquitectura e Urbanismo.

155

The Author

Dr. Prof. Flavio Janches, PhD tuDelft, has a degree in architecture, with a specialization in urban design, University of Buenos Aires

156

Since 1985 he is partner, with Ricardo Blinder of the office bjc architects, base on Buenos Aires, Argentina, working in the areas of project management and urban design. It has participated in more than fifty international â&#x20AC;&#x201C; national competitions, obtaining twenty-four prizes, as the seven times Annual Prize of Architecture supported by the Buenos Aires Central Society of Architects and the Professional Council of Architecture and Urbanism, the Vitrubio Prize of the Buenos Aires National Museum of Fine Arts, and the Jean Garnier - Air France and The Nation prizes offered by the International Biennial of Architecture Buenos Aires ba '98 and ba '01 respectively. Since 2001, Flavio has worked as a PhD researcher (tuDelft The Netherlands), as architectural and urban design professor, (Harvard University, tuDelft, Amsterdam Academy of Architecture, University of Buenos Aires, and Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Quito, Berlage Institute), as visiting scholar (David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University) in projects oriented to transform and to integrate, physical and socially, marginalized urban areas (slums). He has given conferences in Jiantong University, Xiang University, Harvard University, Roger Williams University, Technological University of Delft, United Nation University-wider, Aarhus school of Architecture, Universita iuav de Venezia, Erasmus Hogeschool Brussel, Faculte Dâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;architecture La Camber Horta, Brussels, Technological University of Munich and at the Technical University Federico Santa Maria de Valparaiso among others. In 2007 Playspace foundation, (based in Rotterdam the Netherlands) was created. The main goal of the foundation is to improve the life of children in slums. In 2010 Flavio also opened and is coordinating the Argentinean Playspace foundation office.

157

Slum growth is outpacing all other forms of urban development, with nearly one billion people, or one third of the entire urban population, living in informal settlements around the world today (undesa, 2010). By losing the capacity for integration and social mobility, this reality is consolidated in urban space frontiers that exacerbate social differences and segregation.Today, this condition of urban marginalization is getting worse. The problem now involves not only access to income but also social stigmas that separate those who cannot integrate into the formal system of urbanization and modernization. This publication will survey the problem of urban marginalization by one of its more critical expressions in the contemporary city: the slums. The book aims to define an urban design strategy for the integration of those settlements, which enables to find solutions for the conflict improving these communitiesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; quality of life.

The book presents an urban project approach, which was driven by a series of concerns about the permanent problem of marginality. It contributes to the debate on possibilities of architecture and urbanism to provide planned related solutions for social and spatial integration in different parts of the world.