Formación y transformación de tejidos urbanos híbridos: estudio de casos en las regiones metropolitanas de Bogotá y Buenos Aires

Abstract

The article presents a study of the most repeated types of urban fabric in the metropolitan regions of Buenos Aires and Bogotá, comprised by traditional blocks with mixed uses which allow incremental changes, plot by plot, that by addition can result in the transformation of vast urban areas. Using predominantly qualitative methods, a series of representative samples of urban fabric are examined and compared, including those of Barrio Venecia, Fontibón and Engativá in Bogotá, and Avellaneda, Lanús and Lomas de Zamora in the south of the first metropolitan ring of Buenos Aires. Certain similarities and differences in the processes of formation of these areas are contrasted, as well as the resulting urban landscapes, their structures and patterns of transformation. The question of the mixed-used “hybrid block” and the “interstitial urbanization” processes are two guiding principles of the analysis. The conclusions emphasize the productivity of addressing morpho-typological studies of this kind, and identify a number of planning and design approaches that contribute to the debate of how to operate on contemporary hybrid urban fabric.