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

The objective of this academic exercise is to identify the variables of the physical environment with greater presence, and which influence the perception of insecurity within a case study in the Metropolitan District of Quito, Solanda neighborhood. To this end, the research adopts several methodological phases. The first phase focused on a literary review to build an instrument for observing the physical environment, which included all factors that have been related to the perception of insecurity; the second phase of focus groups with the inhabitants of Solanda made it possible to contrast the literary findings and collect the perceptions of the neighbors in relation to the physical environment; during the third phase, spatial audits were carried out in parks, squares, parking lots, streets and alleys. The results indicate that those variables of the physical environment with the greatest presence and influence on the perception of insecurity among the inhabitants are derived from the privatizations and invasions of public space because of the expansion of housing, to prevent free movement or entry to alleys, or by the occupation of informal commerce. In addition, a large part of the problem stems from the great densification of the neighborhood, the changes in its demographic composition and mobility based on private vehicles, which generates visual barriers on the landscape.

The article presents posters as a tool that, in addition to its graphic power to portrait ideas, they emerge as a means to denounce social conflict while proposing a positive change in the actions of humanity against disruptive scenarios. Within a context that has been forced to depend on digital media for the development of a massive number of academic activities, graphic language is becoming more and more popular, strengthening its presence around the learning realm and with notorious presence within the architecture field. The Faculty of Architecture and Urbanism of UTE University, through its international architecture, urbanism and landscape workshop WINAREQ, joins to the production of this new wave of graphic information, generating calls to encourage the development of posters focused on the themes: “Same place, New rules?”, and “Taking care, within Conflict”, on the years 2020 and 2021 respectively. The calls are presented with a clear message that start with the graphic proposal created by the institution, and invites participants to get involved with the topics. As a result of these calls, architecture students, professionals related to graphic and spatial design, and the general public from different cultural and academic backgrounds, present illustrated proposals that show a wide variety of compositional techniques, various critical messages, and places posters in a hierarchical position within the architectural graphic representation spectrum.

This article addresses the issue of modern architecture in Loja to identify representative samples and objectively assess them from an aesthetic judgment and not only frame them in a certain time. This study focuses on a sample of houses that have not been intervened in Loja between 1964 and 1974, the methodology used is developed in four phases: 1. Contextualization of modern architecture, 2. Determination of assessment criteria for attributes of modern architecture (economy, rigor, precision, universality, and reversibility), 3. Identification and analysis of five houses, and 4. Synthesis of results. As a result of the study, it is presented the analysis and discussion regarding the attributes in samples of modern architecture in Loja which identify the specific features of this type of architecture and recognize that there is an adaptation of its characteristics to the local context; each sample was analyzed with criteria raised from the conceptual, functional, formal, and technological point of view that allow the objective recognition of the attributes which can be replicated in other contexts. Thus, it is concluded that the analyzed houses have attributes that define them as modern architecture and that the made adaptations respond to a formal construction that derives from the needs, construction systems, and materials of the time.

This paper aims to propose a reflection on how the city of Rome is reacting to the social and urban consequences caused by the pandemic situation. Starting from the analysis of urban densification and hyper-densification – and their correlations with globalism – the paper also intends to underline a broader phenomenon linked to the progressive “abandonment” of large cities. In fact, the pandemic phenomenon risks catalyzing two trends currently at an embryonic stage in Italy, generating a scenario with uncertain consequences: on the one hand, the loss of urban attractiveness could suggest a progressive “abandonment” of large cities; on the other hand, cities may have to deal with the need to stop sprawl phenomena and promote greater densification of the urban perimeter. Furthermore, the pandemic is showing how, at the base of the emergency, there is a problem of spaces and that beyond the social distancing, which will end as the contagion began, it will be the architect’s task to help the community to overcome the memory of the trauma experienced, leading to a greater awareness of taking care of spaces and urban metabolism.  

During the years 2020 and 2021 at our university we have developed a teacher training program to respond to the need to train teachers who promote change in their students, so that they develop a "regenerative" vision in their future professional role. Currently our students and professionals have been trained to have an "entrepreneurial spirit" responding to the institutional seal, however, the new times express an urgent call for attention for the transgression of planetary limits. For this reason, our "planet" needs and demands new "spirits", now that, in addition to entrepreneurs, they develop a systemic vision of the effects of our behavior on global warming and on the environment. This article reflects the experience of creating and launching two courses for teachers in: Regenerative Economies, post-covid and other events, held in the first semester of 2020 and the Leadership and Innovation course for a more Regenerative World, during the first semester of 2021. Interdisciplinary groups of co-creation and dialogue were formed. 30 teachers from the Santiago and Temuco campuses participated.

The free expression of artistic practices is an undoubted right, however, when an artwork is situated in a public space and, therefore, becomes an organism that is part of a community, the borders between individual expression and social impact are less marked. Additionally, if this artistic intervention is settled as a part of an historical commemoration wich achieve to produce public memory and celebrating collective identity, increases the controversies linked to the representation and interpretation of the proposed images. The following article proposes a reflection on the previous processes for the realization of an artistic installation in public space. Trough the analysis of study cases, in addition to the observation of the contribution that ethnography can provide in socially committed artistic practices. The aim is to provide different methods that allow the community to feel identified and, then, take care and engage with this new organism that will become part of the collective memory. The starting point of this research is the mural made in the Historic Center of Quito, on 24 de Mayo street, by the Spanish artist Okuda San Miguel, followed by the analysis of methods applied in artistic projects with social perspective. With the purpose of answering the following question: How to establish ethical artistic practices in public space intervention processes?

Disasters, both man-made and natural, are constantly threatening territories and contemporary cities. Human settlements of various sizes ranging from rural areas to metropolises, are frequently exposed to both types of danger in Latin American contexts. Pandemics, floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, as well as economic crises, socio-spatial segregation, privatization, and dysfunctional urban growth patterns, do exert a particularly concerning pressure on contemporary cities. Several disciplines today describe a complex scenario of multidimensional urban problems: physical-spatial, socio-cultural, and technological-environmental. This is a call for academic reflection and a critical as well as dialogical contribution to provide new (or renewed) concepts and solutions regarding these concerns. This journal welcomes local and international academics to publish their theoretical and practical findings in order to develop a new framework of material and concepts, while it addresses the challenges and risks that we encounter in our coexistence spaces on a daily basis. The 21st Issue of Eídos claims for reflection about the complex issue of risk management and opens up for a debate on some of the major open questions on urban and territorial planning, where tools and practices (good or bad) can certainly influence the present and the near future of our settlements; landscape, architecture and construction, highlighting the process of designing as a method that could prevent with awareness, prudence and innovation, the challenges faced today by natural areas as well as heritage, modern and contemporary buildings; and finally, on the public policies, since the world of top-down decisions could amplify, multiply and orient the effects of how we manage our urban and rural assets and resources.

Demographic ageing poses important challenges for the care of people and the places where they live, especially in the case of territories that are already experiencing processes of marginalisation. In countries of the Global North, demographic ageing is a process that has been observed for some time, in addition to the demographic decline that is already affecting marginalised areas in different countries. On the contrary, ageing is an emerging phenomenon in different countries of the Global South and especially in Latin America. Based on these premises, the article proposes to analyse the extent to which demographic ageing contributes to determining a condition of territorial marginality also in the context of the Global South. The analysis concentrates on the case of Chile and focuses on census data at the national level to detect those communes with a high presence of older people and a decrease in the number of inhabitants, comparing them with the communes that national policies define as lagging. The case of Chile, an unequal country with emerging dynamics of demographic ageing, allows us to analyse to what extent the presence of an increasingly older population is related to pre-existing conditions of territorial marginality. Ageing and demographic decline account for a geography of marginality that complements and expands traditional policy definitions, posing new challenges for the care of marginal territories and populations.

Due to the climate and energy crisis that the planet is going through, there is currently a trend to build with sustainable materials that are low in toxicity and efficient in terms of thermo-acoustic properties. Straw is one of these materials that comes from the cultivation of cereals and is obtained as waste from this agro-industrial process. In order to use straw in buildings, it is necessary to bale it using mechanical machines that are not always available in rural areas of Ecuador, either due to geographic or economic difficulties. This study proposes the design of a manual machine with which bales of domestically produced rice straw have been made. These bales meet the technical requirements of the American International Standard IRC 2018. This is intended to contribute to the fulfillment of the SDGs and to provide alternatives to cover the housing deficit in the rural sector where cereals such as rice and wheat are produced.

Disasters, both man-made and natural, are constantly threatening territories and contemporary cities. Humansettlements of various sizes ranging from rural areas to metropolises, are frequently exposed to both types ofdanger in Latin American contexts. Pandemics, floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, as well as economic crises,socio-spatial segregation, privatization, and dysfunctional urban growth patterns, do exert a particularly concerningpressure on contemporary cities. Several disciplines today describe a complex scenario of multidimensional urbanproblems: physical-spatial, socio-cultural, and technological-environmental. This is a call for academic reflectionand a critical as well as dialogical contribution to provide new (or renewed) concepts and solutions regarding theseconcerns.This journal welcomes local and international academics to publish their theoretical and practical findings in order todevelop a new framework of material and concepts, while it addresses the challenges and risks that we encounterin our coexistence spaces on a daily basis.The 21st Issue of Eídos claims for reflection about the complex issue of risk management and opens up for adebate on some of the major open questions on urban and territorial planning, where tools and practices (goodor bad) can certainly influence the present and the near future of our settlements; landscape, architecture andconstruction, highlighting the process of designing as a method that could prevent with awareness, prudence andinnovation, the challenges faced today by natural areas as well as heritage, modern and contemporary buildings;and finally, on the public policies, since the world of top-down decisions could amplify, multiply and orient theeffects of how we manage our urban and rural assets and resources.