Plaza de las Armas-A great example

The first Plaza that I have gone to study is the Plaza de las Armas in Concepcion. It is the central plaza of Concepcion. I will take advantage of this plaza as an example of what the basic elements of central plazas are in Latin American countries. First off, Plazas are one of the oldest parts of a town, they are put in place when the city was built or colonized and towns and cities would begin to spread out from the centralPlaza. In so saying, most often the plaza has a lot of historical significance. You will generally always find a catholic church or cathedral

at one side of the the plaza. you will also generally see government buildings, banks, commercial areas and sometimes prominent schools there also. In the plaza itself you will see things like statues, fountains and even stages for events. The statues usually have some historical significance like this one,

which is of a Mapucha Indian chief who helped the Chileans win there independents from the Spanish. They will also a lot of times have religious ties like this angle atop of the fountain.

The thing that amazes me and which has drawn me to study plazas is the amount of use by the people and the way it draws the community together. As you can see the whole plaza is filled and not just with one certain demographic but of all kinds. There are parents with their kids, old ladies, old men, young couples making out, beggars, Gypsies, street performers, groups of teenagers, business men, rich, poor, religious missionaries from different sects, street vendors and tourists. I was able to see and witness all this in just one visit to the plaza. It is a marvel that one space could be utilized by so many different kinds of people. This is what designers rarely ever achieve or even strive for.

As I was writing this blog I came up with the idea of this slide show to at least give the feeling of what I see going on in the plaza and the variety of people and their activities. Here is a quick video that I put together from what photos I have right now and then I will put a final one together. My wife says that this so far has been her favorite part of our trip. She calls it going to the plaza to people watch.

Intro-Purpose

So this is the start of my blog/journal of our trip to Chile. I am doing this in part for my class and in part so that those that are interested in what I am doing down here can follow along. I am a Landscape Management major at BYU which is a unique major, in that it mixes Landscape Architecture, Horticulture and Business Management into one degree. I am looking to graduate this coming fall and so I needed/wanted to do some research. I came up with the idea of studying Latin American plazas. I will give you a condensed version of my perposal so that you can get why I am doing this and that no, I haven't just come down here to vacation. Though after reading my proposal, I may not have persuaded you.

Urban design is the area of design that looks at all the spaces that come within urban space or highly dense areas. This is quite a broad definition but for me I am specifically interested in those urban spaces that are considered "green" such as parks, plazas, roof top gardens, or pretty much anywhere there is vegetation in the urban area. This focus of urban design has become a lot more important and relevant with in the last decade with something called the Urban Revival. This is what they call the phenomena, due to gas prices and other variables, many of people that lived in the suburbs are starting to move back to the city. With this influx of people to cities and urban centers, there has also come a desire to make these urban space better and more "green". A family that lived in a house with a yard in the suburbs now lives in an apartment downtown, yet they still want a place to walk the dog, lay under a tree or to let their kids play.

This all leads to what I am doing down here in Chile. A interesting solution to this issue of green spaces in urban environments has been in place for centuries in Latin America. Their use of Plazas encompasses much of what we are looking for and lacking in our urban environment. So I came down to Chile to see how they use their plazas, what materials they use, how they function, what interactions the Chileans have with the space, what advantages/disadvantages are there in its design and many more similar questions. The hope is that through an exhaustive study, I might better see how we can incorporate the design principles in the US, in not just large urban development projects but in many different things ranging from mixed use projects, to neighborhood developments.

So I hope to detail much of my findings and thoughts in this Blog. I think for most who, after reading just a little bit of the above paragraphs were completely bored I would suggest just looking at the pictures. I plan on using a lot of pictures because I think they better illustrate the point then me writing about my thoughts. I will also have a lot of pictures of plants and garden elements that I think are interesting or note worthy. I guess more then anything, this post is not only a introduction, but also a way to get you interested and excited about future posts or as the case maybe a disclaimer for those that had other expectations of this blog.