The urban form in the city of Tulcán, Carchi - Ecuador

Abstract

[EN] Tulcán, located north in Ecuador is the capital of the Carchi Province. It is a city especially commercial and agricultural whose urban morphology responds to historical, environmental and administrative circumstances since 1851, date on which the cantonization takes place, begins the formation of the capital city with an urban structure formed in checkerboard that welcomes the traditional nucleus of the typical city of the ecuadorian highlands. With the development of this city, isolated neighborhoods are born out of the original urban fabric that expand in the territory, following the main road connections, eventually to fill the internal space with a morphology of contrasts, as each neighborhood or new occupations are structured individually without thinking as a city of integral formation. The longitudinal growth of the city was marked from its beginning by the river Bob, to the north-west, and the river Tajamar to the south-east; that keeps the city within natural limits, which also provide certain environmental and landscape benefits; however in the last few decades the city has had a significant growth that threatens an unattended and constantly heterogeneous city, with problems and possibilities and attending to the idea that the city is an unfinished work, integral and sustainable urban regeneration is the basis for a reordering and a new urban approach. Therefore was proposed to study three strategic lines: the existing city, its internal circuits of connection and the adjacent nature. Establishing initial uses in the city, to occupy the predominant urban void and thus to activate the public space. Restructure mobility, which will strengthen the use of new peripheral road infrastructures to reduce motorized circuits in the interior, thus promoting the use of bicycles and the creation of pedestrian routes. Finally, environmental resources will again have the value of landscape and ecological wealth producing around the city a green infrastructure that contains growth and is a link of this with the countryside.