Resilient civic design to confront a risky built environment of Santiago, Chile. The case of communities affected by the San Ramon Fault
Jorge INZULZA CONTARDO, Universidad de Chile, Chile
Globally, a greater number of natural events are transformed into catastrophes largely due to the sustained increase in urbanization. Between 1990-2014, an amount of 89 mega earthquakes were registered with an intensification of 18 of these events between 2004-2014 (Lay, 2015). Chile, as part of the Ring of Fire, has absorbed 80% of the most devastating earthquakes in history (USGS, 2013), and this situation is even more complicated by considering that its central area concentrates almost 80% of the national population (INE, 2017). Then, it is crucial to address both problems of urbanization and exposure to hazards in a systemic way as defined by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (UN-Habitat, 2018). From a positive perspective, urbanism and resilience have become increasingly related. While urban planning operates through the application of planning instruments and urban design criteria, resilience has become a sort of performance of urban regeneration and reconstruction strategies, not only to face post-disaster events but as a way of acting permanently and transferring to their communities.
This paper explores how the urbanization in the Santiago piedmont is affected by the active San Ramon thrust fault system, which is associated with geological hazards and the possibility of crustal earthquakes. For this, an analysis of the socio-spatial practices of communities at risk located in the Santiago piedmont is done, including urban design and mapping techniques, and interviews with long-standing residents. The results show diverse design practices at risk and bottom-up strategies that seem to be more effective than urban regulations developed for the metropolitan region in this context. The conclusions emphasize the importance of including disaster risk reduction in urban planning agendas and also promoting more urban design research (Inzulza et al., 2021) that reinforces resilience as a civic asset to be transferred to their communities.
Mots clés : urban resilience|civic design|sustainability |natural disasters|San Ramón fault
A103915JI