Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

The present work presents the modernization caused by the railway in the constitution of the urban landscape between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, considering as a clipping the city of São José do Rio Pardo, located in the northeast of the state of São Paulo, Brazil. The analyses are based on the decisive influence of the construction of the railway structure, which stood out in the development and configuration of the Rio-Pardense urban space as part of a dynamic work. To this end, this article contextualises and characterises the material properties of the Central Station, emphasizing its influence on the conformation of the landscape. Diverse primary sources were used in this study, such as reports of the Mogiana Railway Company, building projects, registration plan, news, and a vast iconographic collection. The theoretical framework consists of the contributions of Santos (2004, 2012), especially on the concepts of landscape and roughness.

Latin American cities face many problems that compromise them from different angles such as lack of infrastructure, government fragmentation, and environmental degradation. At the same time, each city tries to come up with its own solutions, but there are so many difficulties that in many cases it is difficult to keep attention and efforts focused on all these directions. For these reasons, this research aims to define some of the most common problems faced by cities in Latin America. Disseminating these similarities could help to face those problems, since, if local governments recognize that they face the same situations as their neighbors, they could organize themselves to study them and find solutions. To achieve these objectives, this research reviewed the diagnoses made by hundreds of Best Practice proposals collected in the libraries of UN Habitat and the Dubai International Award for Best Practices. Based on these results, this research built a proposal for the contest "Participatory Projects in Public Space Contest" organized in commemoration of the 450 years of Caracas. This proposal served as a case study where some of these cross-cutting problems in the region were explored. At the same time, the contest served as a framework to make these results public and promote discussion on some of these important issues. Finally, this research links different stages and synthesizes some important efforts that are intended to serve as a reference framework to better understand serious and everyday problems that are manifested in Latin American cities.

The history of cities is built from a superposition of layers. The resulting architectural landscapes are in an eternal transformation and contain the memory of slower times of the past that mix with the immediacy of the present. This results in landscapes of disappearance, scars, traces, which are also intervened by the viewer's gaze, its emotions and memories. Contemporaneity questions the changes in cities and their repercussions on different urban landscapes. An integral landscape is sought, where the passage of time is the starting point to project towards the future. Darío Álvarez Álvarez, professor and architect, director of the LAB/PAP, spoke with us remotely in October 2021. It was inquired about the importance of time in the architectural landscape and how architecture and cities could be affected or not, by this.

The results of an energy diagnosis are presented, carried out at the Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Tecnologías de la Universidad Nacional de Santiago del Estero, Argentina. The objective is to analyze energy performance and make proposals for greater building energy efficiency. The methodology consists of three phases: 1) Data collection, 2) Thermal-energy evaluation and 3) Identification and calculation of energy efficiency improvement measures for buildings. The analysis shows a high electrical consumption, where 64% corresponds to ambient cooling, 22% to lighting and 14% to various equipment. Subsequently, the decrease is observed with the application of a university building sustainability program. As a result of the proposed improvements, it is concluded that the energy efficiency index decreases by 17% in a first stage and it is proposed that it is possible to reach up to 38%, continuing with the implementation of improvements through a comprehensive management plan for the saving and energy efficiency, in order to reduce the environmental impact of the university.

The consideration of air is not only evident in the metaphor of lightness or immateriality, it also emerges in stereotomic architecture, that which highlights gravity. The air here is of interest from its occlusal condition, that contained in solid building masses. The stereotomy expresses the idea of occluded air, the opposite of the open air of the modern movement, of continuous space resolved with transparent planes and thin envelopes. This writing exposes project strategies around the configuration of the architectural space and from the materialization of air as a resource that shapes the void. The possibility of inverting the volume of matter that surrounds the air allows us to understand the shape of the vacuum, analyze it and design it. Alternative mechanisms to traditional design practices are tested and exploration in direct contact with materials is prioritized to produce analogical representations. The article derives from the experience of teaching architectural morphology developed in the second level of the Architecture career, at the Universidad Nacional de Córdoba. At the same time, the communication is aimed at students as the main receivers and in the form of didactic material to guide new experiences.

Los espacios educativos cumplen un rol fundamental en el crecimiento de los niños teniendo en cuenta que son el lugar en donde pasan una gran cantidad de horas diarias desarrollando su conocimiento, así como también, interactuando con sus pares. Por esta razón, su planificación debe realizarse cautelosamente teniendo en cuenta a los usuarios a los que estarán destinados. A lo largo de los años se han dado reformas en el sistema educativo que ubicaron al estudiante en una posición más “activa", obligando a la arquitectura a adaptarse y contemplar las nuevas necesidades. Si los lineamientos pedagógicos cambian, así como también los métodos de enseñanza, la arquitectura, a nuestro entender, debe ir de la mano con estas transformaciones. Según un grupo de diseñadores, conocido como ACTIU, dedicado íntegramente a la creación de lo que ellos llaman “cool working”, los cuales son espacios que mantienen un equilibrio no solo entre personas y su entorno físico sino que también con el medio ambiente, se entiende que en un futuro el concepto de aula quedará completamente obsoleto, convirtiendo las escuelas en un contenedor de múltiples actividades en donde no existirán espacios de pocos usos, sino que hasta las circulaciones y las zonas comunes se convertirán en espacios de aprendizaje (ACTIU, 2019). El siguiente artículo tiene como cometido estudiar a los objetos como generadores de estas nuevas espacialidades siendo parte de un sistema que tiene la capacidad de invadir, adaptar y calificar su entorno, poniendo en duda las bases del proyectar arquitectura en la contemporaneidad a nivel nacional, así como también internacional.

In the last decades, the reproduction and the renovation of public spaces became widespread. On the one hand, as an antidote for problems related to urban life, and on the other hand, as a way to place cities in a competitive raking which follows global capitalist logics. The meaning of these spaces for the population began to be studied almost twenty years later. It was demonstrated that there is a reciprocal individual-space relationship, which is influenced by subjective perceptions and affective bonds that impact the wellbeing. It was assumed that the physical qualities of the place influence the development of those ties. Thus, the design plays an important role in those cognitive processes. Meanwhile, Rosario’s urban transformation since 2000 was centered around the renovation and reproduction of its public spaces. Due to the prevalence of this change, two parks of the central coast of the city were selected to be inquired through a mixed methodology which enabled to investigate the physical qualities, the uses and the types of attachment and appropriation. The exploration was held through a field work, surveys and the triangulation of direct observation, graphic report, photography, and the questionnaire responses. In both parks positive links were observed by the population, however, a deep analysis of the cases revealed design issues which affect these ties. Taking this into account, it is possible to replicate this kind of evaluation to other cases within and without Argentina. Moreover, it is essential to reflect upon different design logics in order to pursue the wellbeing in the present urban life.

The municipal ossuary number 2 was projected during the year 1959, in the municipal offices, by Nelson Bayardo and José Pedro Tizze to funerary urns. The risky and powerful structure of exposed reinforced concrete was built between 1960 and 1961 in the North Cemetery. The building was installed near a natural lake formed by a slope of the Miguelete stream, isolated in the picturesque landscape that resulted from the expansion of the park, designed by Luis Crespi in the early 1950s. As soon as the building was finished, the sculptor Edwin Studer made the great mural that covers the entire surface of the north-facing wall, in the inner courtyard. The values ​​that the building holds were presented in various local and foreign publications. This article explores the arguments made about the building published in the press, books and magazines. Those texts and notes that provide significant points of view, that offer interpretations and that use images to support the arguments have been considered. The intention is to review those stories that managed to install this building as an unavoidable piece, in the first place, to understand the architecture made in Uruguay. Located next to the brick works by Eladio Dieste and Mario Payssé Reyes, the ossuary completes the local canonical trilogy, offering itself as a counterpoint for its material. The writings fulfilled an even more important task, recognizing the building as a key example of the so-called brutalist network in Latin America. Historiographical analysis fulfills a third function, establishing a starting point for new studies.

This article reviews the history of company towns in Uruguay, one of the most relevant forms of response to the housing problem before the direct intervention of the State. The company town is understood as the urban complex of housing and services created by capitalist companies for the use of their own workers. The cases of the villages of the Liebig Extract of Meat Company, Aguas Corrientes, Conchillas, Peñarol, the refrigerators in Cerro de Montevideo and Salvo and Campomar will be considered. Although there were other cases, these present an adequate diversity for the purposes of this work. Based on the common characteristics and the differences of these cases, some of which have already been treated by historiography while others have not yet been addressed, the article proposes to reflect on three dimensions of the workers' villages. In the first place, its condition as a "microcosm" is reviewed, that is, as places with relative urban and social autonomy. Second, and directly related to the above, the relevance of the category of "ideal community" for these enterprises is discussed. Finally, the realization and expression of the hierarchies within each of them is analyzed.