Carlos Moreno R Migration is a multifactorial problem. There are the new generations born in Chile and the issue of illegality and violence. We enter into the stigmatization of the migrant. A kind of epidermal reaction is produced, an attack on democracy, because it leads to a total rejection of foreigners. Thus, it is a difficult issue. How to solve it? Honestly, there is no magic wand because it is a global process. Yves Besançon R As you say: what has happened in the city of Santiago is curious because the most important axis divides two different coun- tries like a border. Carlos Moreno R it is a reality not only in Santiago. With my team, we have been working very intensely in Buenos Aires. José Domingo Laura was the town planner for the Argentine dictatorship and at that time, they proposed to build six highways. The 9 de Julio highway was built, which runs from east to west, starts in Ezeiza, and destroys half the city. The only building that was saved was the French embassy. Yves Besançon R Another building saved is the one that houses the Min- istries of Health and Social Development - in which there is a large image of Eva Perón - which comes halfway out, invading Avenida 9 de Julio. Carlos Moreno R Exactly, it wipes out everything, people are expropriated. With my team, we analyzed the fabric of that area and it has exactly the same phenomenology as Alameda. In the north of 9 de Julio, there are services and quality of life. When you go south, you see the degradation: middle class, workers, and informality, you get to the San Lorenzo Stadium and then to the shantytowns. There is no pavement or water treatment, it is terrible. The minimarkets disappear, in the butcher shops you see meat with flies, and self-construction appears: you can buy sand, electric cables, and paint. In Villas Miseria, self-construction dominates because those who live there are workers who have built the large buildings on the other side of the city. The type of morphology of this area is very interesting because even though there is no pavement or water, the structures are very good because there is expertise in building them. Yves Besançon R Mexican architect Elisa Silva says: let them do what they know how to do and let us do what we know how to do. We know how to urbanize, create public spaces, make a good habitat... and let them make their homes. Carlos Moreno R Exactly, and that does not exist. It is not the only part of Latin America where an urban wound translates to that level. There it was a highway. Nueva Alameda is not really a highway but an urban street zone. Yves Besançon R In fact, the Nueva Alameda axis was created as a road project, not as an urban planning project. It was not for the city, but for public transportation to pass through and the doors of the buses even had to be changed because they opened on the other side. In addition, the proposal was to build a bicycle corridor and plant trees. That is not a project that will integrate the north with the south, the lower with the upper. Carlos Moreno R That is what I said: it can't be a road zone. Bicycles and trees are fine, but that does not make a city. The city is created when services from different categories are created and mixed, and that forms new centralities. It is about creating polymorphism, polycentricities, and multiuse, and that we can install new business models. In this diagnostic phase, we are advocating for revitalization to go in the direction of something more comprehensive. Now we are going to enter another phase to propose urban interventions in different areas to regenerate the city and create proximity isochrons. Today, in General Velázquez it takes 20 minutes to cross to the other side of Alameda because you have to pass here, above, and there. We have to make a series of interventions, such as converting that avenue into a pedestrian zone from north to south so that there is a kind of linear urban park that reconstitutes the ground. If you manage to identify 50 points in that
financial towers converted into a cultural center and I see that a phe- nomenology is being managed that can say that it is possible to reverse the model. The difficulty is that it is a race against the clock because the constructive inertia is quite large. Reversing the constructive inertia of a tower takes many years in terms of space and managing materials, so it needs to be anticipated. The counterexample is China, a massive business model. Because of the financial crisis after COVID-19, global construction companies such as Evergrande went bankrupt. With an accumulated debt in 2023 of more than 300 billion dollars, it went bankrupt and was liquidated in January 2024. Thus, the Chinese prefer to destroy the towers rather than keep them empty with an economic model that does not work. Fernando Marín R In well-located areas, such as downtown Santiago, and Providencia, do you see mixed-use buildings or mixed-use zones as possible? Carlos Moreno R I am more in favor of mixed-use zones, rather than mixed-use buildings. A building, by definition, is localized and there is an over-presence of people. Even more so in Latin America where there is still dependence on the automobile and that creates an over-presence of vehicles. Santiago is one of the most polluted Latin American cities in winter, essentially due to vehicle traffic and overheating spaces. A tower is one of the places with the highest energy consumption. So this model and this kind of competition to build higher and higher must be abandoned. Architects should concentrate not on the architectural gesture but on the urban vision. As long as there is no change, we will be prisoners of the 20th-century model. We can no longer be worshippers of the vertical form, no matter how much concrete may evolve. We must move to a model of polymorphism, polycentrism, of multipurpose that integrates what did not exist at the beginning of the 20th century, which are the digital technologies that make it possible to work remotely. Before, an executive supervised the teams, gathered the information, made the report, and delivered it to the upper hierarchy. Now, generative artificial intelligence produces many of the same reports. This means a change in the way we work and, therefore, either we accept it or we fall into an economic crisis that we are already experiencing in the real estate sector. REBALANCING AN ESSENTIAL AREA Soledad Miranda R In your opinion, does the New Alameda Plan go in the same direction as what you are proposing? Carlos Moreno R No. At the moment it is not focused on rebalancing the corporate attitude that has been created in Las Condes, where these towers are being created, but it does help to raise awareness of a city's importance whose backbone should not simply be a road for cars or a parking lot. With my team, we have done a very precise modeling of Alameda: the neighbor- hoods, the zones, how it is used, where the houses are, where the corporate parts are, and where the cars pass through. Well, Alameda itself is zoned. If you leave Plaza Italia and go west to Pajaritos, before reaching the highway, you will see a vertical cut at the Central Station that changes the entire form. Informal commerce appears, sidewalks disappear and we practically have two Alamedas. Therefore, it is not a question of making a bicycle lane, but of recreating an area that, in addition, will border with other neighborhoods because at the same time that there is a vertical separation there is a difference of use. A north richer in services, a poorer south. In Pajaritos, there are close-knit families, while in historic downtown there is a more executive type of population, students; then it is a question of recreating that area and rebalancing its use. We have to develop a kind of new multifunctional urbanism to rebalance it. Mónica Alvarez de Oro R How do we approach migration from an urban point of view? We do not believe that it is a problem in itself, but we do not know how to handle it in a good way.
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