Proper materials and technologies for urban sustainability: Las Mercedes neighborhood in Asuncion

Abstract

Cities are key to addressing the challenges of the current century, climate change and the world sanitary crisis, mainly due to population concentration trends and environmental impacts associated with urbanization. The metropolitan area of Asunción, Paraguay, does not escape from this global scenario, where the neighborhood scale is fundamental. And in that sense, Las Mercedes neighborhood stands out from the rest of the territory because of its urban attributes. From a qualitative strategy and a post-positivist perspective, a descriptive type of research is proposed to investigate the technological and material trends of built space of the Las Mercedes neighborhood; to be able to identify the possibilities of sustainable use of technology and construction materials. The neighborhood retains predominant characteristics of use of traditional materials, with a real estate trend that risks the loss of spatial attributes related to materiality and scale. The sector has excellent opportunities for sustainable construction, through the use of appropriate materials and technologies in the built space, to contribute to urban sustainability on the neighborhood scale. Thus, this article is presented as a contribution to the knowledge about the urban reality of Asunción and Las Mercedes neighborhood, regarding the possibility that sustainable construction can contribute to the urban sustainability of the neighborhood.