La presente investigación se enfocó en generar y fortalecer la experiencia estética de personas que se desenvuelven en un ambiente multicultural a partir del encuentro entre danza y literatura. Se trabajó, durante todo un año, con un grupo de jóvenes que culminaron su proceso de formación artística con la creación y la puesta en escena de una obra original basada en la literatura y la danza folclórica colombiana. La propuesta y su posterior análisis se basan, principalmente en la teoría de Jauss con respecto a la experiencia estética, y en documentos oficiales de los entes gubernamentales que se encargan de la educación y las artes. Entre los principales hallazgos se puede destacar que, gracias al reto creativo y la puesta en escena, lo sensible se convirtió en algo relevante para los jóvenes; además, se pudo restituir a la literatura su lugar dentro de las artes y lograr que la educación artística fuera tomada con la seriedad e importancia que merece.

En una primera aproximación a esta problemática se sostiene la hipótesis de que en las prácticas del campo del arte se ponen en juego una serie de factores: las representaciones históricas del artista, la familiaridad del sujeto con el campo en cuestión, la diferenciación como atributo subjetivo en relación con el proceso de autopercepción y la materialización de una idea que deviene en obra. Esas estructuras disposicionales que manifiesta el sujeto artista en sus imágenes pueden conectarse con tres momentos del trabajo de producción. Primeramente, el contenido afectivo de la obra. En segundo lugar, el contenido formal. Finalmente, el contenido simbólico: aquello que evoca y convoca. La mirada psicosociológica aquí supone una epistemología basada en la teoría de la complejidad de Edgar Morin. Esta perspectiva se ve enriquecida por diversos aportes del cognoscitivismo, el psicoanálisis y el estructuralismo constructivista

Abstract: Because there is nothing intelligent to say about a massacre. Everybody is supposed to be dead, to never say anything or want anything ever again. Everything is supposed to be very quiet after a massacre, and it always is, except for the birds.” All wars are atrocious, and the task of incorporating such inglorious events into a nation’s collective identity becomes understandably hard. But it needs to be done, otherwise, the memory of the war might be trivialized and forgotten and, hence, are more prone to be repeated. War is bound to replicate itself without confrontation and awareness. Mosul city was established on the western bank of the Tigris River in the 6th Century, just across the water from the ruins of the Assyrian city of Nineveh. The city flourished during the ancient era establishing itself as an epicentre of the Islamic world, therefore it is rich with ancient ruins and cultural heritage. The war which erupted in Iraq didn’t aim to destroy only its defence, but also its identity. Entire urban blocks of Mosul’s city were damaged so severely, that when it comes to reconstruction it cannot simply restore the former fabrics, either of space or architecture. The war has changed everything, and most critically the structure of society itself. The spatial reconstruction will mostly require more than just physical rehabilitation and restoration of the cities devastated infrastructure and housing. In order to provide sensations for the need of diversity and unity, more urgent concern should be given to restoring public facilities and daily utilities. Architectural and landscape design can be judiciously used in healing the social structure. How can common spaces be rearranged to create conditions for a peaceful and creative coexistence among citizens which survived such horrors? How can the location and the design of such utilities be done in a way as to meet the needs for intimacy and peace? This thesis study intends to recommend an urban and architectural regeneration project, to be taken upon during the redevelopment of the old city of Mosul. Furthermore, a set of strategies that may ensure the preservation of the urban identity of the area, while redeveloping and coping with the environmental, socioeconomic and political changes have been identified for reclaiming the urban identity and promoting the sense of belonging.

Resumen: Después de medio siglo de preocupación por las implicaciones en el ambiente del estilo de vida consumista, no se han visto cambios que estén impulsando la relación entre economía y naturaleza positivamente. Los procesos lineales en las ciudades aumentan el agotamiento de recursos, producción de desechos y contaminación. Por lo tanto, se debe impulsar una mentalidad circular para evitar el derroche de energía y promover una mejor gestión de recursos para relacionarse con las lógicas metabólicas naturales. Es necesario repensar cómo nuestras ciudades pueden cambiar la idea errada de basura, por la de material esperando a ser reintegrado al sistema. La arquitectura es uno de los impulsores de la generación de desperdicios mediante la construcción y demolición de edificaciones. El diseño arquitectónico, la producción de materiales y la disposición de edificios antiguos, son problemas a resolver para proporcionar un cambio en el medio. Por lo tanto, la presente investigación buscó encontrar relaciones entre diferentes grupos de diseño para crear una ciudad circular sostenible con un modelo de producción circular. Se realizó un análisis de cadenas productivas para encontrar relaciones en busca de cerrar bucles abiertos. Se analizaron materiales, agua, alimentos, naturaleza y energía como recursos básicos de un enfoque ecosistémico. Posteriormente, se presenta una investigación en producción cero residuos y la creación de materiales sostenibles, plasmando al final todos los hallazgos en el producto arquitectónico de una fábrica de materiales reciclados. Se definió un plan maestro para el barrio Muide Meulestede en Bélgica para el año 2030, como población objetivo. Esta exploración reveló que las iniciativas dispersas pueden orientarse hacia objetivos más resilientes y definió que la creación de relaciones puede ser una estrategia de diseño sostenible para lograr una mentalidad circular. Una vez se utilizan lógicas circulares como metodología principal de diseño, es posible adaptar estrategias para ser uno de los principales núcleos a tener en cuenta en el desarrollo arquitectónico y planteamiento de ciudades. Abstract: After half a century of concern about the environmental implications of consumer lifestyle, there have been no changes that turn the relationship between economy and nature positively. Linear processes in cities increase resource depletion, waste production, and pollution. A circular mindset is needed to avoid energy waste, a better resource management and a strategy to relate to the nature metabolic logics. It is necessary to rethink how our cities can change the mistaken idea of garbage, for a material waiting to be reintegrated into the system. Architecture is introduced as one of the drivers of waste generation through the construction and demolition of buildings. Architectural design, production of materials and renovation of old buildings are problems that must be solved to provide a change in field. Therefore, this research finds relationships between different design groups to create a sustainable circular city with a new circular production model. An analysis of productive chains was carried out to find relationships to close open loops. The basic resources dealt to respond to an ecosystem approach were materials, water, food, nature and energy. Subsequently, an investigation in zero waste production and the creation of sustainable materials will be presented, to finally translate all the findings into the architectural product of a recycled materials factory. A master plan for Muide Meulestede neighborhood in Belgium, projected to 2030, was defined as the target population. This exploration revealed that dispersed initiatives can be geared towards more precise and resilient goals, and defined that creating relationships can be a sustainable design strategy to achieve a circular mindset. Once circular and metabolic logics are used as a main design methodology, it is possible to adapt these strategies to be one of the main nuclei to take into account in the architectural development and planning of cities.

Abstract: “How can we say that a river is a thing when its constitutive elements, water molecules, keep changing and will be found here, elsewhere in the river…We should see ourselves not as things, perhaps, but as processes. The common-sense definition of individuals as things, and even of things in general, seems, after all, to be illusory, the result of a naïve perception of the world.” (Hillier, 2007). This research is developed from the premise that urban rivers are ecological structures that distinguish a territory, accentuating the socio-spatial differentiation of river cities along their continuum. Therefore, this study aims to describe the relationship between urban rivers and the morphological inequality at their edges. By inequality, this study refers to the spatial distribution of resources and opportunities for accessibility to them in relation to the population in a territory. It also measures the degree of spatial division and separation communities have among themselves to strengthen their sociocultural fabric. Some of these communities are segregated from urban centres’ social and active integration, which may be associated with spatial aspects that accentuate a poor integration with the social structure. Explosive population growth, the concentration of poverty, unemployment, forced displacement, and limited opportunities for access to educational and cultural recreational facilities and public space are some of the consequences of this socio-spatial segregation evident in communities around the world and constituting significant targets of the global urban agenda. For river cities, it is commonly associated that the dividing structure of rivers highlights such socio-spatial consequences. In many cases, due to accessibility of public services and resources across the length of this natural structure or even to the unplanned extension of the urban grid at scoping the river edges. Therefore, the result of such socio-spatial differentiation can be described in this study as spatial inequality in urban rivers, as it relates the physical aspect of rivers to the unequal social configuration along them. That is, how rivers as natural structures allow reading societies’ evolution and development processes in their territories. In order to address the term spatial inequality, this study attempts to distinguish between unequal and inequitable urban spaces. The former refers to the spatial morphological differences of the urban space and what it can offer within its physical-spatial and social possibilities. The second seeks to balance social needs by understanding its spatial morphological differences and physicalspatial conditions. Under this theoretical basis, this study sets out first to describe the spatial syntactic characteristics that comprise urban rivers. Secondly, to articulate the socioeconomic characteristics mapped within the urban rivers’ riparian area. This is in order to obtain a socio-spatial coding of inequality in urban rivers. Accordingly, the goal of this dissertation is first to open a critical query about the strength of urban river inequalities, as well as to display a socio-spatial configurational analysis of urban rivers that can enlighten the unequal diversification that these networks provide to the city. The findings of this study aim to frame morphological differences in urban rivers as the natural process of societies’ movement along them and comprehend that by strengthening differences and diversity, it is possible to approach more socially and spatially equitable cities.

Abstract: The mountain and inland areas of the Italian peninsula offer forms of rural life deeply rooted in their topographic conformation. At the same time, today they are characterized by dynamics of strong marginalization, processes established starting from the economic boom after the Second World War, and which have not yet been reversed. The Tuscan-Emilian Apennines, and the specific case of Monte Cimone, are structured through a constellation of towns, villages, small hamlets, and borgate which for centuries have constituted their social-cultural, regional, and national backbone. The Apennines today would not exist, or they would remain a mere memory if the horizontal connections present between the plain and the mountain belt were missing. The underlying question during the entire research was: in these fragile contexts, what can and what should be the role of landscape architecture? And how can the physical design of a place be the means for the consolidation of sociocultural and economic dynamics capable of bringing out positive and sustainable development trends? In this sense, the thesis path tries to configure plausible possibilities in which communities support the landscape, and at the same time how the landscape can support the communities. The structure of the thesis brings out how it was developed. The composition started with the chapter Fragile Mountains, which includes the literature studied to support the research. Continuing, there is the Cartographic framework, which consists of the graphic designs developed for understanding the area under study and refers to the numerous site visits carried out over the last year through the construction of a photographic atlas. Then, the project definition of Communities supporting Landscape is developed, which contains the explanation of the project proposal defined through two pilot projects: Socio-Cultural Infrastructures and Re-Inhabited Heritage. Through the recognition and enhancement of the existing, the thesis project elaborates on the basic conditions for the consolidation of the habitability and infrastructure of the landscape of Monte Cimone. A research approach based on sustainable territorial regeneration is recognized. The developed scenario makes specific reference to the cooperative mountain community, a place for socio-cultural innovations. The intentions declared in the pilot projects answer in terms of the offer of services and new job opportunities. The strategies and motivations materialize in a punctual landscape project. The work carried out wants to be perceived as a starting point, research capable of generating indirect positive effects, both in the academic panorama and on the reference mountain communities.

Adaptive reuse is a process that currently is part of the discussion about sustainable urban development in contemporary cities. Research has shown how conducting this type of process represents not only a series of social, economic and environmental benefits that attract the interest of developers, urban planners, and administrative bodies, but also represents an alternative vision and way of thinking to tackle the growth and development of cities making efficient use of available resources. This study aims to determine from architecture the conditions that must be considered to successfully carry out an adaptive reuse project. More specifically, this thesis seeks to answer: How do the spatial qualities of an existing building influence in the successful development of an adaptive reuse process? To answer this question, an experimental method was proposed for the qualitative and quantitative analysis of the adaptability and flexibility of the space in existing buildings, in order to understand to what extent these could be transformed and adapted to new requirements. In this way, it was intended to be consolidated as a possible tool to support the decision-making of stakeholders in this type of projects. This method was applied in six different adaptive reuse case studies in Italy and, as a result, it could be understood that besides to social and economic factors, the spatial qualities of the building, infrastructure or site to be reused also represent a fundamental factor to consider in the success of the adaptive reuse project. However, this method has some limitations in the form and scope of the analysis of the spatial qualities for which future research and development would be required so that it can contribute to the discussion of sustainable urban development in contemporary cities. El reuso adaptativo es un proceso que actualmente forma parte de la discusión sobre el desarrollo urbano sostenible en las ciudades contemporáneas. La investigación ha demostrado que la realización de este tipo de procesos representa no solo una serie de beneficios sociales, económicos y ambientales que atraen el interés de los desarrolladores, planificadores urbanos y organismos administrativos, sino que también representa una visión y una forma de pensar alternativas para abordar el crecimiento y el desarrollo de las ciudades haciendo uso eficiente de los recursos disponibles. Este estudio tiene como objetivo determinar a partir de la arquitectura las condiciones que deben considerarse para llevar a cabo con éxito un proyecto de reuso adaptativo. Más específicamente, esta tesis busca responder: ¿Cómo influyen las cualidades espaciales de un edificio existente en el desarrollo exitoso de un proceso de reuso adaptativo? Para responder a esta pregunta, se propuso un método experimental para el análisis cualitativo y cuantitativo de la adaptabilidad y flexibilidad del espacio en los edificios existentes, a fin de comprender en qué medida estos podrían transformarse y adaptarse a nuevos requisitos. De esta forma, se pretendía consolidar como una posible herramienta para apoyar la toma de decisiones de los interesados en este tipo de proyectos. Este método se aplicó en seis estudios de caso de reutilización adaptativa diferentes en Italia y, como resultado, se pudo comprender que, además de los factores sociales y económicos, las cualidades espaciales del edificio, la infraestructura o el sitio a reutilizar también representan un factor fundamental para considerar en el proyecto de reuso adaptativo. Sin embargo, este método tiene algunas limitaciones en la forma y el alcance del análisis de las cualidades espaciales para las cuales se requeriría investigación y desarrollos futuros para que pueda contribuir a la discusión del desarrollo urbano sostenible en las ciudades contemporáneas.

This thesis argues that Portmeirion, a holiday resort in North Wales built and designed by Sir Clough Williams-Ellis from 1925 to 1976, is not an ‘idiosyncratic playground of little interest’ but an architectural site that not only followed the pattern of expansion of seaside tourist resorts in Britain since the early 1900s but also responded to them through its unique and sustainable ‘light-opera’ approach. Whilst the village’s characteristic look corresponds to the fact that Williams-Ellis aesthetically designed every corner, down to the last detail, it also reflects his lifelong efforts of introducing pleasurable and accessible forms of architecture to the public. Through a narrative mode of creative-writing describing a journey to Portmeirion, the strong association of the village with fictional stories such as the 1960s TV series The Prisoner and its long disregard within British architectural history are challenged – thus positioning Portmeirion as an exemplar of reactions against what were regarded as unsympathetic rural leisure developments in the early-twentieth-century. Resumen: Esta tesis argumenta que Portmeirion, un complejo turístico ubicado en el norte de Gales, construido y diseñado por Sir Clough Williams-Ellis de 1925 a 1976, no es un "patio de juegos idiosincrásico de poco interés" sino un projecto arquitectónico que además de seguir el patrón de otros centros turísticos que se expandieron a lo largo de la costa de Gran Bretaña desde principios de 1900, respondió y los desafió a través de su enfoque único y sostenible de "ópera ligera". Mientras que el aspecto característico de la villa corresponde a que Williams-Ellis diseñó estéticamente cada rincón, hasta el último detalle, la exótica apaciencia de esta también refleja los esfuerzos de toda la vida del arquitecto de introducir formas de arquitectura agradables y accesibles al público. A través de un método narrativo de escritura creativa que describe un viaje a Portmeirion, esta investigación desafía la fuerte asociación del complejo con historias ficticias como la serie de televisión de los años sesenta, The Prisoner, y su desprecio por la historia de la arquitectura británica, lo que posiciona a Portmeirion como un ejemplo de reacciones contra lo que se consideraba desarrollos de ocio rural poco comprensivos y respetuosos con el medio ambiente a principios del siglo XX.

The cities are composed by a series of complex networks of relationships that shape an urban fabric based on the social condition developing around the territory. The urbanism that rules most human establishments today, can be clearly differentiated by the conditions in which the inhabitants have appropriated the spaces that constitute the urban centers. In the case of the city of Bogotá, the contrasting territory is notorious. The capital district stands as the largest urban center in the country, which has a great historical, economic, and social burden and yet stands out strongly for its anti-value of urban deterioration. Within the rest of the city, some sectors coexist despite of being on undergoing process of deterioration because of urbanistic and social reasons that determined the spatialization of the crime and marginal dynamics. This issue has spread and become more complex over time. The areas called “ollas”, remind the city the consequences of oblivion and indifference toward broken zones, and at the same time, set an opportunity to transform the urban environment through architectural actions. “Ollas” urban phenomenon in the city of Bogotá, intends to analyze the cases known as “ollas” in the Colombian capital scenario, understanding these urban decay cases from an abstract concept applied to an area of high complexity where spatial, institutional and social factors converge and result in a built territory inhabited by vulnerable populations isolated from legality and conventional city dynamics; the above, with the aim of generating an urban and architectural proposal in the character of a model of acting based on the analysis of causes and effects of the entire system.

Resumen: A través de la investigación en un barrio de Estambul y sus transformaciones físicas y sociales se plantea un proyecto que parte de la lectura del entorno construido. El entendimiento del mismo y de su valor arquitectónico (el valor de la no-arquitectura) genera un diálogo entre lo propuesto y lo existente. El edificio resultante sirve de marco para dar un nuevo significado a aquello que está ahí pero pasa desapercibido, transformando algo común en algo inusual. El objeto arquitectónico se convierte en una exploración en sí mismo, e intenta generar nuevas relaciones espaciales, retando convenciones establecidas por la arquitectura. El proyecto explora nuevas maneras en las que pueden habitarse y apropiarse tanto los espacios exteriores como interiores del edificio, un poco más cercanas a la forma en la que puede ocurrir en la arquitectura espontánea e informal de ciudades como Estambul. Abstract: Through the research of a neighborhood in Istanbul and its physical and social transformations, a project is proposed from the reading of the built environment. Its understanding and its architectural value (the value of the non-architecture) produces a dialog between what is proposed and the existent. The resulting building works as a frame to give a new meaning to what is already there but isn’t seen, making the common, uncommon. The architectural object becomes an exploration within itself and tries to generate new spatial relations, which challenge the conventions established by architecture. The project explores new ways in which both the exterior and interior spaces can be appropriated, closer to what can happen in the informal or spontaneous architecture of cities like Istanbul.