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Tensions and convergence: contemporary urban design as an alternative to urban sprawl

Authors

  • Constantino Mawromatis Universidad de Chile
Vol. 28 No. 79 (2013)

Abstract

Over the last three decades, the discipline of urban design has been experiencing a phenomenon revealing a more comprehensive and sustainable conception of urban growth, becoming a real and feasible alternative to sprawl. This phenomenon is expressed in the emergence and progressive convergence of urban trends derived from different approaches; these trends share a proactive attitude towards the achievement of better cities and have resulted in experiences that act as alternative models opposed to the inanity of suburbia. This paper aims at identifying and contextualizing this phenomenon from a historic perspective by recognizing the diversity of its components and understanding the similarities that can be drawn from each approach. The presence of seemingly irreconcilable conceptions of urban design, as the ones championed by the neo-traditional tendencies and the ones focused on innovation, has led to ongoing theoretic debate on parallel paths that rarely converge. However, specialized literature and some paradigmatic new towns increasingly reveal the concurrence of principles that may confirm this phenomenon as evidence of the strengthening of the discipline within a sustainability framework.

Author Biography

Constantino Mawromatis, Universidad de Chile

Architect, DEA, PhD candidate at the Superior Technical School of Architecture, Technical University of Madrid. Assistant Professor, Academic at the Urban Planning Department, Faculty of Architecture and Urban Planning, University of Chile.

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How to Cite
Mawromatis, C. (2013). Tensions and convergence: contemporary urban design as an alternative to urban sprawl. Revista INVI, 28(79), 125–163. Retrieved from https://revistainvi.uchile.cl/index.php/INVI/article/view/62536
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Revista INVI
Facultad de Arquitectura y Urbanismo
Universidad de Chile
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