Escuela de Politécnica Superior

Recorrer el paisaje supone un diálogo con el territorio fundamental a la hora de conocer y analizar sus valores y características, ligando la acción humana con el espacio y con el tiempo. Así, el camino, o la carretera, se convierte en un elemento que canaliza las vistas y narra la siempre dinámica y cambiante lectura de un territorio. La percepción del paisaje visto desde la carretera se hace especialmente relevante ante el fenómeno de dispersión urbana. Las tendencias de urbanización creciente de las últimas décadas han conducido a una movilidad cotidiana cada vez más amplia y veloz, favoreciendo la proliferación de espacios ‘servidores’ a la ciudad en una franja cada vez más extensa y difusa en torno al centro. Esta ‘urbanización del territorio’ en la zona de proximidad a Madrid se viene conformando en torno a siete ejes radiales: ‘corredores metropolitanos’ que asumen la función de soporte territorial de estos viajes. Se plantea el análisis de la franja periurbana de Madrid a través de dichos corredores. Para ello, se diseñan y aplican técnicas metodológicas específicas y extrapolables a otros casos o a periferias de otras poblaciones: observación directa, inventario fotográfico secuencial, análisis de contenido y generación de cartografía. Los resultados pretenden ahondar en la caracterización del área periurbana de Madrid, así como enriquecer el catálogo de herramientas de estudio disponibles para los agentes que intervienen en el planeamiento y diseño de estas áreas periurbanas, destinadas a crecer en las décadas venideras.

The needs and group practices of adolescents have great impact on public spaces. Further understanding how and why they value certain environments is instrumental to better integrate their perspective in the design and management of our landscapes, as well as in raising environmental awareness and fostering sustainable attitudes and practices. We present the findings of a workshop on landscape preference carried out with a secondary school in the suburbs of Madrid. With participants between the ages of 11 and 16, photo-based Q methodology in combination with qualitative data allowed for the identification of groups sharing similar viewpoints, general trends, as well as exploring the structure and meaning behind consensus and disagreement photographs. Findings show overall positive valorisation towards green spaces, especially those where urban greenery is combined with recognizable architectural elements. Familiarity with the landscape type seems to encourage positive rankings, and preference towards well-known cultural sites manifests at older ages. Among the wide array of photo-elicitation techniques devoted to the assessment of landscape preference, photo-based Q methodology has seldom been used. However, this intuitive, effective, and inexpensive technique can be carried out in short and enjoyable sessions, showing great potential to be applied in geographical and environmental education.

This paper presents an exploration of the thresholds of the city, embodying the concept of Urban Green Infrastructure. In particular, it is a journey through the urban fringe of Madrid, where these green infrastructures, due to their form and history, achieve the sense of urban threshold and act as identity generators of the city. We examine the concept of peri-urban landscape in relation to nowadays challenges of sustainable development, as well as the benefits of Urban Green Infrastructures in the contour of the city. We then take a brief tour though the peripheral landscape of the city of Madrid, where we analyse metropolitan parks and historical green areas that comply its proximity image. After identifying the green infrastructures acting as thresholds in the city of Madrid, we focus on the south-east diagonal of the capital in order to reaffirm its importance in the construction of the image and identity of the city. We defend the importance of Urban Green Infrastructure to and from the city, suggesting the necessity of a supra-municipal planning tool to take change of the peri-urban landscape, usually perceived as subsidiary, to deem the proximity visions of the city as relevant for its design.