The theme of the 8th International Urban Design Meeting was related both to the context of the city of Iquique - the desert - and to the possibilities of action of urban design for the construction of better cities.

The academics of the ULS Department of Architecture, Alejandro Orellana and Alma Ponce, participated in the 8th International Urban Design Meeting “Utopias, Deserts, Cities and Experiences: Good Practices for Emerging Cities”, organized by the Academic Network of Urban Design and Arturo Prat University. The event was held in the city of Iquique, between October 17 and 19, and brought together more than 40 researchers and professionals from public institutions, private entities and national and foreign universities.

The Urban Design Meetings have been held since 2011 in various cities across the country, including La Serena, where, in 2014, the event was organized by the Department of Architecture of the University of La Serena. These events, in the form of a congress, include among their activities presentations by researchers, keynote talks and a sample of projects in poster format.

The theme of this year's Meeting was related both to the context of the city of Iquique - the desert - and to the possibilities of action of urban design for the construction of better cities.

In this framework, Professor Ponce presented her presentation entitled “Gradation of religious traditions”, which investigates the cultural hybridizations of religious dances and their links, through color, with the urban spaces of northern Chile.

For his part, Professor Orellana presented his research regarding the metropolization of Greater La Serena through two presentations. The first, titled “New forms of metropolization and opportunities for planning. Gran La Serena Case, Chile”, where he presented the results of his doctoral thesis, with an emphasis on the possibilities of future development that our city has by virtue of its particular metropolitan future. The second, presented in conjunction with the academic from the University of Bío Bío, Dr. Aarón Napadensky, and titled “The landscape in the residential reorganization of the elite cases of Gran La Serena and Gran Concepción, Chile”, in which he delved into the trends contemporary aspects of the residential location of the elites in the urban systems of Greater La Serena and Greater Concepción.

For professors Ponce and Orellana, participation in these events and being active members in the Academic Network of Urban Design have been fundamental to position the Department of Architecture in the national context of urban research, promoting the publication of articles in indexed journals and carrying out linkage activities with other universities, enriching the field of research, as well as in undergraduate teaching of the Architecture degree.