Obsolescence of urban morphology in Villena (Spain). Spatial analysis of the urban fabric in the ISUD/EDUSI candidature

Abstract

[EN] The Integrated Sustainable Urban Development strategy (English acronym ISUD, Spanish acronym EDUSI) is an urban planning tool that the municipalities with more than 20.000 inhabitants in Spain need to be funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) in the 2014-2020 period. The city of Villena is located south- east Spain, inland the province of Alicante. The Villena municipality developed this tool in order to have a holistic and integrated vision of the situation of the city from the urban, social, economic and environmental points of view. As a part of the analysis performed to develop this strategy, a spatial analysis of the urban fabric of Villena was carried out. This study employed concepts from the typomorphological schools of Italy, England and France (Moudon, 1994) as well as from the research on relation between density and urban form (Churchman, 1999, Berghauser & Pont, 2009, Steadman, 2014). The data and cartography of the Spanish Cadaster, processed with SIG software, allowed the study. The spatial analysis included different variables of the built environment, including building height and age; plots size; open space ratios, Not-built plots; type of built-plots according to height and built surface; and compactness of the fabrics. The results of this analysis showed a relationship between the morphological variables and the problems identified in the citizen participation meetings carried out for the elaboration of the ISUD. The identified aspects of urban morphology obsolescence allowed proposing strategies of action to update the built environment to current demands.