"Make something new with what you have".

“Con lo que hay hacer algo nuevo" project is a advanced degree thesis, developed with a cooperation between University of Genoa and P.U.C. de Valparaíso. It has been pursued with the intention of entailing three major steps: a research study, development of a new approach to waterfront in light of the research, and a concrete application of this approach.

After sociological surveys, interviews, and in-depth lectures, we have started to re-elaborate the data provided for our research. Our project aims to respect the “Identidad Porteña”, differing from the proposal of the Port Authority and the counterproposal of the Master of the P.U.C.V. together with P.U.C. of Santiago. Porteños residents love their city with its colours and its music, while tourists consider Valparaíso a city rich in identity and culture. Why break up its coastal edge that may emulate European cities? The main purpose of our project is to make Valparaíso, since is aleready Unesco Heritage, a historical-touristic port, and relocate the present economic-commercial port to the mouth of the Aconcagua river, which will be the future ecological port able to accommodate panamax and postpanamax ships, preventing the need of the city until to 2045. To support this future projection, please refer to Andrea Sota Master’s Dissertation (Nautical Maritime Master PUCV). The primary task was to analyze the attracting poles of the city and create a space-time scheme of how they work nowadays. If time would be considered as y (ordinates), while the space as x in the x-axis, they both would identify an arc of circumference that draws an area. This aforementioned area represents an iteration between territory, identity and time. After this analysis, we thought to represent new circumferences with new spatial-temporal relations based on a better functioning of the city. These relationships can be achieved by adding catalysts inside that modify the radius of action, or by improving the connections, (either the direct ones as well as the indirect ones). The difference between the two schemes generates new correlations and new intersections between areas. The last step is to define our “urban acupunctures”, always leaving a certain degree of indefiniteness. In this way, the local community will acclimatize and adopt the new architecture, retaining its identity within an architecture that will always have as its first aim the securing from earthquakes and tsunami.