In recent years, urban design development has been an important topic in Latin American cities such as Medellín due to the transformation of their urban spaces, along with the new methods used to evaluate the social, morphological, and, in some cases, economic impacts that have been brought about by the urban development projects. When inquiring about the development process and impact of urban studies, and the inhabitants’ relation to a transformed space, it is important to establish the context within which images, drawings, and photographs are analyzed, using graphical approaches triangulated with other research methods to define comparative criteria. In this article, we reflect on the expanded use of various research tools for the analysis of urban transformation, taking with reference the experience lived by a group of researchers in two Latin American cities. From this, it is intended to understand how they work and how they allow us to understand the urban transformation of these cities, the data obtained, and the vision of the researchers.

Creative and innovation districts are focused on boosting local economies. However, they also pay attention to the global scale since this local identity of the Orange Economies gives them added value and competitiveness globally, as well as international projection and visibility of products, services, and new technologies associated with creativity and innovation. Thus, this study reviews three case studies of the cities of Barranquilla, Bogota, and Medellin in Colombia, seeking to characterize the creative and innovation districts. The methodology used is strictly qualitative, resorting to the characterization of the polygons and the analysis of public policies. This study describes the general aspects of creative and innovation districts in Colombia. Then, it identifies the forces for CD and ID development in three Colombian cities and the drivers for urban sustainable transformation. The main purpose of this study is to understand if innovation and creative districts are new scenarios for sustainable urban planning.

Los imaginarios del archipiélago de San Andrés, Providencia y Santa Catalina han estado comúnmente reducidos a la industria hotelera y al turismo, invisibilizando una serie de tradiciones, realidades, emociones, percepciones y vivencias diarias de los pobladores de este territorio. Ante este acallamiento, se unen las voces de los escritores de las islas para permitir, a partir de su apuesta poética, tejer una visión más polifónica y menos estática. Se estudiaron cuatro relatos de los escritores Lenito Robinson–Bent y Juan Ramírez Dawkins, de la isla de Providencia, Colombia, con el propósito de evidenciar los imaginarios del archipiélago emanados desde las propias islas. Para esto se realizó una caracterización del Caribe, un rastreo de los autores del archipiélago y finalmente el análisis de los cuentos de los autores seleccionados.

In the past few years’ urban design development has been a topic that in some of Latin America cities such as Medellin, Mexico City and Córdoba, has been evolving under the shadow no longer far from concepts as social innovation and social urbanism, a situation that generates new perspectives and concerns about the impacts that this transformations bring to the cities and its communities. The aim of the collaborative research project was to acknowledge the impacts of urban transformations on five different cities and comparing them to find similarities and differences. A comparative analysis of multiple cases was proposed, along with a methodological triangulation that contained observation, photography analysis and the production of graphics accompanied by interviews in order to arouse an approach to the perceptions of the community residing the space and their affective bonds with it. Inquiring about this process and impacts, and the inhabitants’ relation with their newly transformed space, researchers used graphic research methods that allowed collecting, evaluating and establishing comparative criteria and identifying reiterating impacts caused by urban interventions. Different graphic and visual tools such as drawings, photography and graphic reconstruction were used as a tools to identify the urban and architectural strategies through which a connection between urban space and its inhabitants in each city in order to compare with the other four cities. These tools where used in order to define a recurrent method creating an effect of distance, which increases the effect of designation and shows urban dynamics to articulate submerged realities in opposition with the images created through the visual tools, so a closer relationship between research and representation is made.