A tissue, a building, Santiago de Chile : transformation of the images and elements of the language of space and form into the design of a promenade

Abstract

This study explores a strategy for an urban intervention in Centro Poniente, Santiago de Chile. Centro Poniente represents an urban district that needs some sense of focus and orientation. The hypothesis is that such an intervention should be sympathetic to the character of the city fabric as manifested by the physical elements in a gamut of scales. Such manifestations are reflections of cultural norms and values. Intervention then represents an incorporation of new standards as a dialectic between permanence and change. In its structure and sequence, the thesis illustrates a way of designing, with the purpose of making that more conscious and explicit. The incremental process of recognizing appropriate images or organizational devices and then incorporating them in an evolving project, carries the exploration through a series of studies of various components of the city of Santiago: walls, components of walls, components generated by walls; scales, dimensions and light modulation of such components all contribute to the making of a promenade acting as a catalyst for the revitalization of Centro Poniente