Final+Project

=Final Project=

The objetive of Taller II of urbanism is to analyze the hazards and the vulnerability of a sector located near __**to**__ Santa Cruz de Mora in Merida where a flood happened five years ago and almost destroyed everything and based on this analysis make a simple urban proposal to improve the community’s quality of life.

But what is vulnerability in the first place? It is the susceptibility of a community to be physical, economical, political, institutional and sociocultural damaged, so we had to study several variables such as the academic level, the presence of headquarters of public institutions, the level of economic activity and what is its primary source of income and the level of organization inside the community to name a few. Once we completed this analysis, we had to separate microsectors on the plane of this sector based on the level of vulnerability (low-medium-high) creating spots. Then we had to make a superficial study of the physical conditions like the slopes and the orientation of the hills, the geological characteristics, the geomorphological processes and the vegetation of the sector to choose the kind of hazard on which we were going to develop a deeper study of the same conditions and once again separate microsectors based on similar characteristics and similar implications in terms of the level of threat (low-medium-high).

With these two analysis completed we had to overlap the planes to indentify the principal zones of potential risk so we could develop our urban proposal over a safer ground.

In our case, after we studied the hazards of the sector, we realized that our proposal had to consist in moving a very vulnerable group of houses located near __**to**__ a river on a high threatened microsector. What makes this group of houses so vulnerable is the presence of just one way of access to them, the presence of a small elementary school and the absence of any economic activity.

In our proposal we had to think, besides in where to relocate them, in how to lower the vulnerability of this microsector by improving the facts already mentioned. In order to do so we decided to __**destinate**__ **(destine)** the low-slope hills on the northeastern side of our sector to relocate this group of houses with a new organizational system based on a grid plan consisting in five principal blocks running along the principal road of the sector. Four of these principal blocks located at the beggining and at the end are __**destinated**__ to a residential use and has a secondary street forming an axis that divides each principal block in**to** two smaller blocks for a more comfortable circulation. The middle block is __**destinated**__ to satisfy the principal needs and to improve the facts that can still make it vulnerable, so we decided to emplace a bigger school that incluides the elementary, the middle and the high level of education. In front of this would be a square surrounded by a one-way street with commercial premises on the other side to implement both the economic activity and the interaction between all of the people that will live here.

To control the urban growth on the same zone where this group of houses is located, in our proposal we wanted to emplace a small sport complex in the lower side of the hill, right upon the principal road, and convert the higher part of the hill in a proteccion zone which is an ecological solution to avoid people from occupying this space.

Making an urban proposal requires a lot of invetigation because it involves almost every aspect of the society and it has to be both aesthetic and functional, so an urban planner has to consider many aspects that can modify positively or negatively the life of those for whom it is directed. Our proposal seems simple but it has a huge amount of analysis behind it so it can be __**helpfull**__ to the people of Santa Cruz de Mora.

[|Final Project Slideshow] media type="file" key="Final Project.mp3" width="240" height="20"