Pedestrian routes: Neighborhood as a way of inhabiting the slopes of Valparaiso

Abstract

Architecture is the life of a community embodied in the city, and through its habits it generates tracings, historical traces that are perpetuated in time. The social development of a community leaves behind daily needed traced paths, generating a recursive plot lying at the very beginning of the urban form: the city presents itself as the reflection of social needs. The understanding of this city outline can be then used for purposes of urban analysis. In Valparaiso, Chile, the habitable profiles on the slopes allow the understanding of their order. This case presents a legal and legitimate occupation of its hills, but not planned and irregular in the occupation of the slope. The architectural method proposed here consists in the study of pedestrian mobility, seen in terms of closeness and distance, with the typical topographic complexity of Valparaiso. The study of mobility allows delving into territorial transformations, identifying and understanding its different urban, neighborhood, domestic, historical and current scenarios: a way of recovering the elements that make up downhill urban space.

Keywords: city layout, pedestrian mobility, residential habitat, Chile.