Propuesta para la rehabilitación sísmica de edificaciones patrimoniales del Centro Histórico de Cuenca, Casa Malo de Valdiviezo

Abstract

In the historic center of the City of Cuenca CHC, The historic center of Cuenca CHC, considered by UNESCO “Cultural Heritage of Humanity” has an architecture of exceptional characters that highlight the vernacular construction tradition, as well as its artistic, historical and symbolic values. The built heritage coexists with a series of threats that put its integrity at risk. The heritage buildings of the CHC are experiencing a constant seismic threat due to their location in one of the areas with the greatest telluric movement on the planet. This area is called “The Pacific ring of fire”. The objective of this work is to develop a preliminary proposal for an architectural and structural rehabilitation of a heritage adobe building in the historic center of Cuenca, specifically the Casa Malo Valdivieso, to improve the seismic capacity of the house and enhance its heritage values, guaranteeing the preservation of their heritage for future generations. The work is developed from the methodology of “Preventive Conservation” disseminated by ICOMOS in four phases: anamnesis, diagnosis, therapy and control. The anamnesis or analysis for the documentation and evaluation, the diagnosis for the study of the structural damages that allow to establish the state of conservation of the property, complemented with seismic analysis methodologies to determine the degree of vulnerability, the therapy consists of the criteria and corrective measures of the proposal, finally the control phase corroborates the behavior of the structure in the face of new requests. The study of the building according to the methodological proposal shows the execution of a pioneering work in the area of heritage conservation in Cuenca, articulating tools from the areas of architecture and engineering, that allowed, from a contemporary approach, the development of a sensitive and respectful proposal towards the house, without avoiding the functional demands of the actors involved.