Architecture, City and Nature. Opportunities for environmental vulnerable areas La Plata, Argentina

Abstract

Abstract: Recent Natural disasters like rain and floods affecting the City of La Plata, Argentina, and his surrounding areas, have provided the evidence of urban structures` vulnerability and the fragile coexistence between nature and city under special situations. The City, designed under the ideas of the “XIXth Century Hygienist Movementâ€, has faced its own growth in a fragmented and heterogeneous manner. The foundational core spreads outside its original boundaries following the traces drawn by the highways, generating scattered areas that have, eventually, transformed the foundational ideal. Architecture should take the challenge to guide the city´s growth into a more fare and socially balanced future.

To deal with the problem and operate on it, we explore the case of the “Arroyo El Gatoâ€, a stream running across the North extension of City. Here, the study of the spatial conformation of the area shows the interruption of the urban fabric in the stream`s borders without any criteria of recognition or topographical adaptation to the route of the watercourse. The area represents an opportunity to break and decompose the original city grid in order to recover the singularity of the place, reversing its current situation as a barrier of urban development. This proposal considers the production of knowledge on the subject considering: the exploration/ experimentation/ modeling of urban and architectural configurations in the irregular settlement located beside the channel, its surroundings and overflow area committed to the city.

The following topics are developed:

- Proper dimensions of watercourses.
- Proper architectural conditions for risk zones.
- Continuity and rupture of the urban fabric.
- Channel-flood park with designed spaces and natural environment.
- Improvement and completion of new and existent dwellings.

Generation of public space and equipment, in order to, progressively, contribute to the spatial and social integration from the informal to de formal city