From the object to the process: the landscape of post-catastrophe reconstruction

Abstract

The post-catastrophe image, from the architectural-urban point of view, is the reflection of socio-spatial dynamics related to complex phenomena. Since the last century, the disasters have been researched in a profound way from a mainly disciplinary point of view. The studies have focused to predict the events and on a methodological work of post-event solutions. This situation is highly complex, where converge multiple factors that define the emergency reality. The analysis and strategies of interventions have focused on static approaches to urban recovery and re-habilitation or ex-novo construction of specific works, that have not solved the real problems that arise in a post-catastrophe situation and It is not been defined a criterion on the landscape of these conditions that can answer the question: what is the representation of the image in this type of socio-spatial configurations?

The present article wants to define the concept of "landscape of post-catastrophe reconstruction" so that the framing of the issue is about the process (dynamic framework) and not about the object (static framework). This has materialized, at the methodological level, through interviews with the community and two in situ surveys of the built park and the urban system of San José de Chamanga, emblematic place of the province of Esmeraldas in Ecuador. The results lead to the definition of two types of landscapes that show the need not to intervene with accurate and permanent zoning, but with process models that are adaptable to the changing environment.