English versions of the following articles are available online

Title: Bobi and the Greenbelt Utopia
Author: Gloria Favi. Professor, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile.
Abstract: The delirious journey of Bobi, the freak, blurs the boundaries of a segregated city. His search for a utopian space to contain its monstrosity leads to the imagined city, spatial production of the Chilean State for the new man and a transformed society.
Keywords: literature – Chile, patas de perro, Droguett, urban segregation, psycho geography, dérive
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Title: Chalk Urbanism
Author: Francisco Quintana. Architect, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile.
Abstract: Frei Montalva promoted the “Operacion Sitio” program and Villa La Reina by Fernando Castillo Velasco is an exemplary case of it. Given scarcity, the people got only what they could not obtain by themselves: urban design and connections with the city.
Keywords: urbanism – Chile, social housing, self-build, urban design, housing policies
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Title: Housing, A Problem of Access to Land
Author: María José Castillo. Professor, Universidad Andrés Bello, Santiago, Chile. / Rossana Forray. Professor, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile.
Abstract: Fifty years of continuous development of land squatting seem to indicate the need for new instruments to face the housing deficit. Segregation and urban sprawl are evidences of the importance of land management policies for low-income housing.
Keywords: urbanism – Chile, social housing, housing policies, territorial planning, periphery, self-advocacy
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Title: Intergenerational Architecture and Public Space
Author: Sergio García. Professor, Universidad Andrés Bello, Santiago, Chile. / Pablo Martí. Professor, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile.
Abstract: A new residential model associated with the public space, as traditional instrument for integration and citizenship, can be a valuable tool for promoting urban heterogeneity and improve social cohesion in the city.
Keywords: urbanism – Spain, architecture – Spain, social housing, civic cohesion, social integration
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Title: From the Home to the Neighborhood
Author: Margarita Greene. Professor and Researcher, Centro de Desarrollo Sustentable, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile. / Felipe Link. Professor and Researcher, Centro de Desarrollo Sustentable, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile. / Rodrigo Mora. Professor and Researcher, Universidad Diego Portales, Santiago, Chile. / Cristhian Figueroa. Collaborator and Researcher, Laboratorio de Ciudad y Movilidad FADEU, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile.
Abstract: A shifting from quantitative to qualitative issues drives urgent reviews of housing policies in Chile. The mere provision of housing units gives way to the recognition of the neighborhood and its integration into the total city as key factors of new social programs.
Keywords: urbanism – Chile, social housing, segregation, community, public space
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Editorial. Social project

Once again, the catastrophes that take Chilean cities by surprise from time to time leave their under layer uncovered: the fragile substrate over which we have literally built our urban reality. In April, earthquakes and fires shook various regions of the country and (crudely) removed all that is accessory and perishable, perhaps reminding us of the fondness for heavy structures and the poor reputation that lightweight structures have in our culture. What remains after the fires in the hills of Valparaiso o after successive earthquakes in the north of Chile? Where is reconstruction viable? Where is it appropriate to found again? Where is it necessary to overhaul?

From this perspective, the images of neighborhoods completely destroyed by the fire in Valparaiso are strong and eloquent and raise many questions with respect to the social role of architects and their current capacity to mold the built world. One of these questions, one that appears both as pertinent as it does tragic refers to the urgent and desirable quality of our ruins. And probably (following the argument of Brinckerhoff Jackson) also appeals to the understanding of the history itself, marked by cycles and disappearances.

It is at this crossroads where as architects we would have the first task of prevention, an initial urgency that unfolds in each project and that tries to attend to the inherent social responsibility of the practice of architecture: to provide the best possible ruin. It is about bare structures capable of creating patrimony in the most prosaic sense of the world and its capacity to persist while enabling change throughout its prolonged life.

In both the ruins of the burnt hills of Valparaiso and the ruined neighborhoods of Alto Hospicio in Iquique demonstrate the key role that the urban fabric holds for the construction of a good ruin: from the form and size of the sites to the relationship between the traffic and infrastructure networks with the topography. More indelible than many buildings, after a catastrophe this outline can be the sole survivor. The precision of this outline, even it if is only a line of chalk in the ground, can make all the difference between a city capable of capitalizing the most modest of investments and one that is unable to raise itself up despite implementing the best top down welfare program.

This edition of arq seeks to condense the perspective on these decisions, the most basic of architectural form, following the notable example of Fernando Castillo Velasco in Villa La Reina and echoing the importance of those founding elements for the consolidation of cities (and societies) that are more inclusive, legitimate and equal. If there is a good ruin, not all is lost, even though that ruin may only be a distance or a direction carefully marked on the ground.

Summary (printed version)

Editorial

Social project / Patricio Mardones

Galería AFA Portfolio

Sobre estrellas y raíces / Rodrigo Arteaga

Readings, works and projects

Bobi and the Greenbelt Utopia / Gloria Favi

Capillas para el Arzobispado de Santiago, Santiago, Chile / Baixas y Del Río Arquitectos

Chalk Urbanism / Francisco Quintana

Casa MuReRe, Buenos Aires, Argentina / Adamo-Faiden Arquitectos

Housing, A Problem of Access to Land / María José Castillo, Rosanna Forray

Conjunto Nueva Paniahue, Santa Cruz, Chile / Pablo De La Llera, Isabel Pedrals, Pablo Lobos

Intergenerational Architecture and Public Space / Sergio García, Pablo Martí

Centro de ocio, Guadalajara, España / Ábalos + Sentkiewicz Arquitectos

Capilla San Manuel de la Estrella, Pudahuel, Chile / Tomás Browne, Alberto Browne

From the Home to the Neighborhood / Margarita Greene, Felipe Link, Rodrigo Mora, Cristhian Figueroa

Residencial Parque Novo Santo Amaro V, São Paulo, Brasil / Vigliecca & Asociados