Sensitive Tool with Gender Perspective for the Identification of Vulnerable Landscapes: The Importance of Experience in Urban Landscape Planning and Modification

Constanza Contreras Saffie | Architect, Master in Landscape and Territory Program, University Diego Portales, Santiago de Chile

The concept of health in our cities has changed its focus. It is not an exclusive issue of health anymore. It has moved from an individual-centered model to a social-centered model (Vanore, Triches 2019). The healthy city creates and improves the physical environment and the social context and must represent the capacity of the built environment to satisfy, in qualitative and quantitative terms, the needs of the population (Barton and Grant, 2006).

On the other hand, the city has generated spaces of vulnerability linked to the safety of citizens and, in particular, of women. The traditional methods of reading, measuring and building contemporary urban spaces are insufficient to make these vulnerable landscapes visible, since they only consider quantitative factors that tend to generalize and standardize the perspective of urban daily life, excluding the life experiences of those who inhabit it.  The proposed methodology tests a multidimensional valuation tool with a gender perspective, a factor that would condition both the use and experiences of public space based on the perception of vulnerability. The tool presents a multilayered notion through the use of various indicators that seek to account for the complexity of the urban public space by combining different dimensions and application configurations.

The tool proved to be very useful for analyzing, evaluating and proposing improvements in the case of study, where the spatial conditions of vulnerable urban landscapes were identified. The analysis allowed visualizing planning guidelines and possible intervention strategies that allow modifying the public space and equating access to opportunity from an equity-based approach.

At the same time, it was possible to identify common aspects of critical points between the different age groups and genders, which allowed establishing a line of operation that integrates gender mainstreaming.