Morphological patterns identification system: diagnosis of urban marginal areas and development of replicable projects for densification housing in the Aburrá Valley

Abstract

The project looks at the overall scale of the Metropolitan Area of Aburra Valley municipalities (Medellín and surrounding municipalities), in order to formulate a plan of opportunity areas for habitat improvement and redensification housing in areas of informal settlements. First, the project developed a methodology for the identification of these kind of areas. Currently, through the research of indicators of parameters of quality housing, we’ll be able to diagnose which areas are suitable for the formulation of the plan. Those developed indicators set quality control processes and guidelines for design and planning from a general scale, up to the scale of the project as such.

It is observed, from a morphological analysis of the studied areas, repetitive patterns, which suggest that there is a structure of order within the seeming chaos of informal settlements. This structure can be used to explore a strategy of urban planning based on replicability process.