Inhabiting the edge. on the collective places and structure of rurality in Chile´s Central Valle: a review of types and cases

Abstract

The purpose of this text is to portray certain types of rural places in the Central Valley of Chile: those that emerge and develop outside of official policies and, nevertheless, are still able to represent the features of their territory, almost always in a spontaneous manner. It is hypothesized that these places arise and are characterized by a condition of marginality, related to the fact that they develop on the edges of this territory´s modernization process. A review of some cases-projects created in the Graduation Workshop class at the University of Talca´s School of Architecture enabled a reflection on the ability of architectural projects to activate their underlying potential to become public space. Based on a series of interventions carried out in an academic context, planned and built projects constitute the vehicles and methods of research. Thus, they made it possible to reveal preexisting physical and cultural structures – in short, ways of inhabiting the territory