Reciprocal reflective practice for the environmental design of public spaces

Abstract

Architectural practice must provide ongoing professional growth, where design knowledge and abilities are strengthened through updating and self-assessment processes in order to place architects in leadership roles in urban transformation while generating feasible proposals that respond to the sustainable development paradigm. In this sense, Reflective Practice with Reciprocal Action in design strengthens architecture theoretically, conceptually and instrumentally - all necessary factors to face the challenges of consolidating a sustainable built environment. The Rehabilitation Project for the Historical Centre of Barranquilla, Colombia serves to illustrate the possibilities and results of an exercise in reciprocal reflective practice. In this case study, environmental analysis and assessment methods applied during the design process enabled the development of a proposal with a unified urban image adjusted to the climatic, social and human reality of the city while highlighting its historical, cultural and ecological values. The final proposal integrates a cross-disciplinary approach that endorses and guarantees decision-making in formal, aesthetic, constructive and technical aspects of the project, sustained by the methodology of Reciprocal Reflective Practice.