ABSTRACT
Valparaiso Publico is a graphic inventory of 50 exterior spaces situated on ten of the 42 urbanised hills of the Chilean city. It is the result of numerous on-site surveys of the public spaces where the topography and the city meet to define Valparaiso’s cultural identity. The uniformity of architectural representation applied to these surveyed spaces allows us to group them in this investigation, with the purpose of comparing them, and extracting lessons on the crafting and use of the city’s ‘contemporary vernacular’. It offers a new spatial database for the participants of the city and a tool that will facilitate the development of future urban projects. This experience has the potential to be adapted to other circumstances and is a call to restore critical and experimental observation in our practices, to take time to understand a context before intervening in it, in order to produce better urban and architectural designs.
