DIEGO DELFÍN ÁLVAREZ DEL CASTILLO

Urban Recycling. The urban transformation of the contemporary city in Europe

Tutor: Ignasi de Sola-Morales, Francesc Muñoz. This thesis investigates the transformation of specific obsolete areas of our contemporary postindustrialized cities (product of the industrialization era) that now have lost their original contents. In the contemporary european metropolises exist various areas that need a reconsideration of their uses, in the same time that we can detect the demand of new ones. An effort has been made through this research in order to respond to that reality with a global vision. The thesis proposes a strategy of urban recycling that can give answers simultaneous in 3 scales: the global, the metropolitan/regional and the local, of the specific site under transformation. 3 cities have been selected that have suffered important recent transformations. Through those cities the present thesis intents to investigate different responds. Lille, as center of transportation flows; Berlin, as a manifestation of a political will; and Bilbao, as an experiment for new forms of touristic development.