The importance of the manifestation of citizen participation in the stages of the master plan and the process of preparing an urban design project

Abstract

This article intends to emphasize the importance of citizen participation in the elaboration of urban design projects that are being carried out in the towns that make up the urban environment of today, also highlight the importance of this participation in each of the phases that are presented in the process of forming these design projects. To properly carry out an urban design project it is advisable to follow a methodological design process, which at the time is defined by each designer; In the research project, of which this article was generated, the stages that make up this process were defined through the review of several design methodologies, this is how the following stages were established: urban planning, the studies that will support the development of urban design projects, master plan, scheme, urban blueprint, urban executive project, urban project implementation and monitoring and evaluation.

Two fundamental stages for an urban design project that we can appreciate in this process are the stage of the master plan and the stage of the design scheme, since they are the stages where you really begin to capture on paper, the design project to be carried out , so it is essential that in these stages the participation of the citizens carried out in the stage that precedes them is reflected, the stage of the studies that will support the elaboration of urban design projects, since this participation will be the one that It will give the necessary support to the master plan and the design scheme, so that these stages, in an effective way, respond to the requirements and needs of the population, so that in addition, this urban project to be carried out is accepted, cared for and protected, by its next users, and therefore be a space of success. In these stages where it is required to have defined the system tree and the design premises, it is essential that the proposals, recommendations, ideas, suggestions, needs and requirements, expressed by the citizens through their participation, be reflected in these works of the design process, so that this reflection of citizenship is manifested, in turn, in the master plan and the design scheme, which will generate with this foundation an urban project accepted by its users, in which it will produce a sense of identity and appropriation. As a result of the use of the information obtained through the participation of the next users of the urban space to be projected, a master plan can be developed where it will be possible to properly appreciate the structuring and optimal arrangement of the spaces according to their operation and to the activities that will be developed in them, which will conform the project system in all its hierarchies: system, subsystems, components and elements, according to the tree of the elaborated system, in this master plan you can also appreciate some intentions of design that will be implemented in the different spaces that will make up the system, these intentions will be defined in the design premises, for which, as already mentioned above, the suggestions and recommendations of the population will also be indispensable. In the case of the design scheme stage, the information obtained through the participation of the citizenship will be considered, as in the previous stages, so that it adequately reflects the design criteria concerning the primary, secondary and service accesses, the criteria of primary, secondary and tertiary vestibulations, and the criteria of primary, secondary and tertiary circulations, in addition to design intentions that complement those considered in the previous stage; so that finally the urban space to be generated, present an urban project that is functional and according to the expectations of the citizens.