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Author: Rperalta

Published by Rperalta on August 4, 2008

and you think you can sketch!

Oscar Niemeyer el maestro de la forma, del concreto, el ultimo modernista.
el esquema para el diseno del edificio de las naciones unidas en NY lo hizo el, pero por pertencer al partido comunista los estado unidos le ha negado la visa para entrar al pais. que ironia. Fidel Castro dijo “Niemeyer y yo somos los últimos comunistas de este planeta.”
Niemeyer gano el premio pritzker ( el nobel de arquitectura) en1988, hoy el arquitecto tiene la edad de 100 .

Published by Rperalta on August 3, 2008

Los fantasmas del urbicidio en TJ

dos video del trompetista gringo Herb Alpert grabados en dos de las estructuras que detonaron la raison d’etre de esta ciudad: el toreo de tijuana, hipodromo caliente.

Published by Rperalta on August 3, 2008

Generique

Como dije antes, no más me interesan las cosas más viejas que yo. Y esta es una de esas raras mezclas de música y cine que crean una experiencia sublime.
Grabado el 4 de diciembre de 1957 en Francia (11 anos antes de mi nacimiento) escrita por Miles Davis para la película “Ascenseur pour l’echafaud” de Louis Malle.


Published by Rperalta on July 29, 2008

Incumplen nuevas viviendas de Tijuana con estándares de la ONU.
Escrito por Roxana Di Carlo, Síntesis TV/Noticias.
24/07/2008

Hace un par de semanas, organismos de derechos humanos en Baja California revelaron que las nuevas viviendas que se construyen en Tijuana no cumplen con los requisitos de espacio que establecen los estándares internacionales de la ONU, ante esto, el presidente municipal Jorge Ramos comentó que ha mantenido pláticas contantes con los desarrolladores mediante las cuales se ha llegado a una serie de acuerdos.

Entre los más importantes, dijo el alcalde de Tijuana se encuentran las medidas de seguridad y la forestación de los conjuntos habitacionales, pero, además quedó claro que debe darse la oportunidad a los residentes de contar con espacio suficiente para agrandar sus viviendas.



Slum, semi-slum and superslum… to this has come the evolution of cities. Patrick Geddes

excerpted in Mike Davis, Planet of Slums



De la pelicula koyaanisqatsi – Pruit Igoe con musica de Philip Glass

La historia se sigue repitiendo, vivienda tras vivienda de escasas dimensiones. El alcalde cree que con sembrando arbolitos (y a veces en verano) se van a dignificar estas pichoneras. Un desmadre vial y urbano lo que están causando en la ciudad. Son nuestros “slums” “Pruit Igoe” detonadores de problemas de saludo publica. Es increíble que el gobierno municipal se comprometa con una deuda histórica para pavimentar calles. Es ridículo que cada administración lo único que hacen es tapar baches. Y también es triste que no podamos hacer lo bien una ves. Y me imagino que van a pavimentar vialidades de mayor flujo y dejaran los miles de m2 de calles con tierra en las colonias – el caso de contaminación por partículas en el aire son causa del transito vehicular por avenidas y calles sin pavimentar. Pero después de todo esto hoy dije en la radio que era optimista sobre el futuro de la ciudad. Necesitamos gente con ganas de hacer cambio, desde su comunidad, el valemadrismo tiene que terminar. O eres parte del problema o de la solución? Tijuana tiene graves problemas de desarrollo urbano y social, no importa que se discuta si TJ esta de moda o no, lo que tenemos que hacer es seguir buscando alternativas y modelos nuevos a seguir (en ecología, vivienda, cultura etc.) donde la participación ciudadana sea primordial.

Published by Rperalta on July 25, 2008
Dial me in
Mar Sin Fronteras 102.5 FM todos los Lunes 10 am. Conductor Arq. Oscar Romo

El Lunes 28 estaré en el programa de radio del Arq. Oscar Romo. Estaremos platicando sobre el curso de urbanismo que acabo de impartir. Hablare de arquitectura, urbanismo, ciudades, ecologia, etc etc, de cosas que me interesan y que creo tener conocimiento profesional al respecto y no de cosas que no se o no me interesan como el arte en tj, chismes, imagen de tijuana, futbol,culturosos, vacas ( y eso que me invitaron al cow parade de san diego – ya me viera decorando una vaca) en fin espero que lo escuchen por que Oscar Romo es una persona que se dedica y preocupa por el medio ambiente de esta zona fronteriza.

Published by Rperalta on July 25, 2008
Fluvial Cartographies – Urban Design Projects Along the Tijuana River Watershed Washington University Urban Design Graduate Studio@Woodbury, San Diego
Instructors: Andrea Dietz, John Hoal, Rene Peralta

It’s done!

The Washington University summer graduate studio is over. On July 18 pencils set down and drawings were pinned up, a jury of TJ and SD experts incorporated the firing squad (jury or reviewers) as is custom in architecture schools. The jury is there to reaffirm students, that no matter how much they work or deserve it, they are never right. Was the course a success? I believe so. The studio was an experiment on immersion; introduce a group of young knowledgeable people to urban conditions identified as developing and/or 3rd world. TJ/SD is perfect for such experiment because the disparity between both cities and countries is clear and evident. Yet, I also realized that Urban Planning as we know it is dead, because it does not have the instruments as a discipline to deal with a new definition of post-modern human development. As my good friend Michael Dear explains, the discipline does not have a clear vocabulary able to conceptualize the phenomenon and in the meantime it babbles names such as post-suburban, post-urban, heteropolis and sprawl. In this search for concepts and definitions we must also understand that spatial tendencies of this current urban phenomenon have shaped new organizations and structures of habitation. Current methods of study include top down research techniques (land use planning, master planning, data mapping) that do not examine 3 dimensional performance of intricate and bottom –up programs and events that correlate to operate in a way that might be defined as chaotic. Yet, when this chaos is observed, it produces distinct logics of operation (spatial) not being dealt with or understood by traditional planning strategies. If specialization was a failure it has been more evident in the urban design fields where landscape architecture, civil engineering and architecture design have their own departments and are taught separate from urban design. As I realized in this studio, these “other” fields are extremely important for the conceptualization of new and current definitions of urban space. James Corner wrote in the Landscape Urbanism Reader; “In conceptualizing a more organic, fluid urbanism, ecology itself becomes an extremely useful lens through which to analyze and project alternative urban futures.” We also encountered a type of self built urbanism during our research and trips to Tj. A characteristic that is typical around this city and in many developing world urban conditions. Who better than citizens to know what their needs are and due to centralized control, opt to take matters into their own hands. If the practice of urbanism does not contemplate citizen participation and solely relies on a bureaucratic process to be active, its role in shaping space and engaging the political is diminished.

The particularities of Tijuana (a 20th century city) allow for the search of new conceptualizations and as Dear explains reconstructing its meaning through a different ontological view. Some have already began to define and contemplate such an ontology of the city after modernism, Anthony Vidler writes of the creation of a third typology, “The distinguishing characteristic of the new ontology beyond the specifically formal aspect is that city, as opposed to the single column, the hut-house, or the useful machine, is and always has been political in its essence. The fragmentation and re-composition of its spatial and institutional forms thereby can never be separated from the political implications.”


Below are pictures of the final review during the presentations. The projects will be refined for an upcoming exhibit and conference in Tijuana this September, date to be posted later.


The Jury: (from L to R): John Hoal Wash Univ, Todd Reinhart Woodbury Univ, Jeraldine Forbes University of New Mexico, Catherine Herbst Woodbury, Tito Alegria COLEF, and Oscar Romo TJ Estuary. Others included; Jose Parral Woodbury Univ, Hector Perez Woodbury Univ, Stan Bertheaud Woodbury Univ, and Bruce Lindsey Washigton Univ

Playas de Tijuana

The Playas de Tijuana team presenting and trying to make their case for the re-configuration of the US/Mex Border through a proposed bi-nationa estuary


Los Laureles


Los Laureles team explaining their use of feniculars to improve circulation from the canyon and insertion of prototype nodes along the canal that incorporate community spaces, water treatment facilites and schools


Detail of their master plan along the canyon

Fenicular Station, Sports field and Water Reclamation Infraestructure

Zona Rio Tijuana

The Zona Rio team working to bring recreational programs and water treatment inside the Tijuana River Canal.

The Framework Plan along the 1st phase of the Rio Tijuana

Master plan of an intent to connect plaza rio with city hall through the Tijuana River.

8 weeks – 6 days a week – two cities – two countries – two languages – 5 projects

Rio Alamar

The Rio Alamar team dealt with a proposed road cutting through the Alamar and opted to divide the zone in two. Near the most urbanized area (Murua) they hyper-program the site and leave the other half to agriculture and recreation, because in TJ there is no such thing as just “green” space.

The Murua section of the alamar

The agricultural and recreational fields to the east

Housing along Corredor 2000

The housing team presents their alternative low income housing models. Using the same criteria of current developers such as Urbi, Geo and other misfits of housing, they incorporate mix income residential, public amenities and canyon rehabilitation.



All these projects will be presented to the city of Tijuana at the CANACO. I want to thank all who participated and we are already working on the next studio for next year. All photographs during the review were taken by Wash Univ student Andrew Malick

Published by Rperalta on July 17, 2008

My Secret Life


I smile when I’m angry.
I cheat and I lie.
I do what I have to do
To get by.


Este video – canción del poeta canadiense Leonard Cohen- fue filmado en una de las obras más famosas del arquitecto Moshe Safdie, Hábitat 67 en Canadá. Una idea utópica de vivienda socialista, una de las obras mas interesantes del prefab (no mas hay dos prefabs que funcionan, esta de safdie y el edificio nagakin de kurokawa mas o menos de las misma época) un edificio de concreto y de bloques modulados que organizan un estructura tipo lego a escala real, y en cierta forma crea espacios a la Piranesi y sublimes – espacios para crear nuestra vida secreta.

Giovanni Piranesi Carceri (1749–50)


Recomiendo ver el video en youtube, click aqui


Published by Rperalta on July 17, 2008

Actos Ilícitos de Urbanismo

En esta imagen vemos la infraestructura que vio nacer a esta ciudad – Tijuana siempre coexistió con hipódromo, toreo y una traza urbana moderna. Una historia ya perdida.