Comparing+and+contrasting

According to both texts about Architecture and Urban Design, it is clear that you can find differences and also similarities between them.

One of the main differences between Architecture and Urban Design is that the first one has as a main concern for the design of internal spaces, creating more private environments and the creation of the building itself, while the last one is more related to the process of making outside spaces, development and creating public places. As you can see, both of them create spaces. 

Another point is that the architect has the obligation of building spaces where people can take shelter from the outside conditions (specially the weather). The urban planners, for the nature of their discipline (outside spaces like streets, squares, development, cities, etc.), not always have to provide people for shelter, but they can do it if they consider to do so. 

However Architecture as Urban Planning have to consider many other factors that are related to both external and internal places. One of these factors is the inclusion of the context around the space where architects and urban designers will develop and then build their design in a harmonious way. They also have to include a broad analysis about the socio-cultural status of the zone, so it can provide spatiotemporal frameworks and consider the climate for the materials selection. 

On the other hand, the architect takes some of these factors like materials and the creation of some spaces in a very specific way. The architects have to be even more related to the socio-cultural status than the urban designer, because a house for example, for its private nature has a more narrow relation with the people around and it is especially directed to a small group of people. In this sense, the material is going to have a meaning and it will communicate functions.  On the other, Urban planners have to keep some distance and be careful when directing the design to a very specific group, because their spaces are related to a wider part of the population, so you could say that the level of the privacy is proportional to the number of people that will enjoy the place. 

Finally, I think that Caracas in terms of Architecture and Urban design despite to be connected to the people around, has a lot of deficiency in both fields. One of the main problems is the streets design, specifically the directions on them make a lot of traffic almost all day long, and there isn’t many spaces in the city to walk around and relax, because a great part of the spaces have been taken for the construction of buildings. Likewise, the buildings and houses are very different from one another in some cases, especially the height of the buildings seems not to follow any kind of restrictions or law. To sum up, Caracas seems to be a disorganized city, but maybe this was designed by some people without experience and the right inclusion of many of the other disciplines that are necessary to create built environments; or sometimes the fact of being an expert in the subject is not a warranty of success in both Architecture and Urban design.

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