Enekuri is an in-between area located around the administrative boundaries between Bilbao and Erandio municipalities on a relatively high altitude of approximately 90m considering its close proximity to the sea. Its transition character is marked from long ago since the area has acted as an entryway to Bilbao from the Txorierri Valley, and it still serves as a regionally important road transportation interchange point. Geomorphologic variety embodied by the Asua River tributary to Bilbao’s estuary, and the Altzaga and Enekuri-San Blas hills structure the area’s natural character. The strong interaction among industrial, residential, infrastructural and rural land-uses structure a case study that is morphologically diverse. Morphological analysis of fringe landscapes Moudon (1997) lists three elements that are fundamental to morphological analysis of the urban form: form, resolution and time. Of form, she mentions three elements: buildings and related open space, plots and streets. The second element is resolution and it covers four levels: building/lot, street/block, the city and the region. As for the last aspect, time, she claims that morphological analysis considers the relationship between history and urban form in order to understand and differentiate periods of morphological homogeneity (Moudon, 1997). In addition to these three basic elements, morphological analyses also focus on plan units; these units are homogenous and cohesive since they were built and/or transformed at the same time or in a similar way (Moudon, 1997). In short, traditional morphological methods build on the continuity factor or on the way that things “fit together”. The data used for such analysis is a combination of aerial photographs and GIS database analysis (Gobierno Vasco, 2015) combined with field trips using private and public transportation means. Buildings and open space, plots and streets are studied in order to identify homogenous morphological spaces. A morphological analysis considers the scales of analysis of plots, the street/block, the city and the region (Moudon, 1997) following a gradation of scales, but in this case, the work has chiefly focused on the lot and plot/street. It must be pointed out that the analysis takes place only at a plan level, that is, without taking into account any kind of section through the terrain. Therefore, the slope is intentionally not included in the method as a variable. The objective is to ascertain whether the use of form, resolution and time is sufficient to understand the specific character of the urban fringe on a mountain slope. The field work has shown that the following sets of functions can be found on the hills of Bilbao:
local customs and cultural landscape related elements – farmhouses and chapels transportation infrastructure and service infrastructures economic and industrial activity related buildings open natural space residential and everyday life related elements – housing areas, education and sport facilities.
At the building and open space level of analysis many buildings of various sizes and forms are found, depending on their activity and land use: industrial, commercial and residential. In addition, schools and urban service related buildings can also be found. Various combinations of building typologies and related open space can be identified, although some repetition occurs such as in the case of industrial pavilions or single family homes. The size of an economic activity related building varies from a 22,400m 2 shopping mall to the smallest 1000m2 building. Detached single family housing ranges from 100 to 250m2, and residential blocks of 210 or 435m2 have been identified. However, the field work signals that there are further kinds of activities, such as service (a 746m 2 electrical substation building) and transport infrastructure, such as several gas stations of about 435m 2 distributed in three small pavilions. There are also educational facilities (a school structured by three buildings amounting to 5467m2), economic facilities (a junkyard with four buildings totalling 1148m 2 of construction), and religious buildings (an 897m2 church). These elements have also been included in the
Urban Form at the Edge: Proceedings of ISUF 2013, Volume 2
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