VIRTUAL Barcelona
Abstract
The Historic Center of San José, Costa Rica, has percentages of disused buildings of 17%, although 81% of them are in good or fair condition, that is, they are recoverable buildings with competitive investments. Despite having high levels of service infrastructure and being surrounded by the widest cultural and heritage offer in the country, the underuse of buildings responds to a wide peripheral offer and in turn to the absence of strategies, policies and offer that put into value these buildings by facilitating their rehabilitation or functional readjustment. The San José RISE research project (Real Estate Reactivation of the Historic Center of San José from alternative financing platforms) proposes an urban planning approach strategy based on the identification of 4-block polygons where recoverable buildings are concentrated and which can be subject to an improvement of their urban context. In this way, the recovery approach acquires an extensible and scalable character within the urban fabric of the center with a cumulative effect. The presentation focuses on the explanation of this strategy and the analyzes and projections generated to verify its positive effect both on the economic and real estate reactivation of the Center and on the reduction of Greenhouse Gas emissions.
Tomás Martínez is an architect who graduated from the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá. He obtained his master’s in urban design from the Universidad de Costa Rica. Specialist in Management and Revitalization of the City, the Landscape and the Territory from the University of Castilla – La Mancha. Master’s in business High Managmen (MBA) Rey Juan Carlos University. Research professor at the School of Architecture of the Technological Institute of Costa Rica. He was Executive President of the National Institute of Housing and Urban Planning INVU and the National Institute of Aqueducts