Hacia una concepción socio-física de la habitabilidad: espacialidad, sustentabilidad y sociedad Toward a socio-physical conception of habitability: spaciality, sustainability and society

This paper presents a conceptual review about habitability from three different scopes: 1) the physical-spatial one, which is based on ideas coming from theory of architecture, on the Heidegger’ reflection about habiting and building and on the phenomenological notion of space as place; 2) the one related with the dynamics of environmental process which locates habitability as a decisive factor to determinate the urban sustainable development; and 3) the psycho-social one which is structured by etological, psychological and psychosociological interpretations about the relationship between individual and their habitat. The intersection of these three approaches generates a forth perspective which joints the physical factors with psychological and social factors, and the interaction with environmental process. This theoretical review intends to emphasize the importance of thinking of habitability as a global concept, which has to account not only the quantitative aspects of regulations about the inhabitable spaces, but also the biological and psychological features of inhabitants, the pattern of social gathering and the direction of the development model related to the process of habitability production.