Top Banner
PartiPris. atelier of architecture and urban design
38
Welcome message from author
This document is posted to help you gain knowledge. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think about it! Share it to your friends and learn new things together.
Transcript
  • PartiPris.atelier of

    architectureand urban design

  • All images and texts 2009-2014 Gianmaria Socci & Andrijana Sekulic.

  • PartiPrisGianmaria Socci & Andrijana SekulicAtelier of Architecture and Urban Design

    Registered Office,via Dei Tornei 13,60020, Offagna (AN), Italy

    [email protected]

    www.partipris.eu

    (+39) 335 6915714(+382) 69 693517

    PRACTICE

    We provide architectural services for both private and institutional clients, for any scale and budget. We invest considerable effort in every project, with professional attitude and passionate dedication.Our practice counts on a flexible organization with experts in every relevant field freely adjoining according to specific needs. We are thus able to fulfill the most difficult tasks and challenges, using advanced tools and a critical knowledge.Our core expertise is Strategic Planning and Urban Design in complex scenarios, although we can count on a wide range of consultancies within our practice, covering Urban Economy, Administrative Management, Social and Digital Innovation, Landscape Design, Transport Planning, Energetic Sustainability and Architectural Design.

    MINDSET

    We believe in the ability of Architecture to make changes.We believe that cities are the material manifestation of a specific attitude towards the world and the society.On the other hand we are aware of operating within a cultural heritage and we respect it, as well as its tradition and its aes-thetic language.We believe in Beauty, as outdated as it might sound, and we understand that it only arises from answering the right que-stions.We are skeptical about reductionism while we do believe in complexity.We like stratifications, contaminations and translations and we are accostumed to efficiently operate within them.We aim for our projects to live their own lives.

  • Regarding the evocation and revaluation of the green areas in the city center, the Antivari or Old town of Bar has a great influence. Here natural green invasion of climbers, low vegetation, olive trees along with stone construction creates an image of reciprocal respect between nature and man.This phenomena will be revived in new park of the city of Bar. The future park will be also an important knot of cultural manifestations (summer scene, workshops, children recreation) and participation.The theme friendship has been declined into five programmatic points.

    Friendship between nature and construction- architecture and nature formally collaborate whereas they differ for materiality which makes their own identity to arise. This way the two forms coexists and respect each other.

    Friendship between modernity and tradition- Inspired

    by the fortification of old Bar, using the traditional stone construction , we want through a new vision of architecture to revive tradition.

    Friendship between technology and manufacturing- We want craftsmanship to regain the great cultural value it used to have in the past. New global technologies in collaboration with local manufacture, can raise the value of the place and create a strong identity.

    Friendship between light and shadows- Plays of light and shadows are always presented in the park. It creates a dynamic atmosphere where activities adapt to temperature and light.

    Friendship between play and relax- The park should be the collective place where people meet, chat, share ideas and opinions. But the park is also the place to be alone with nature, enjoy your privacy and express individualism.

    Client: Rotary Club of MontenegroBar (MNE) 2014

    PARK OF FRIENDSHIP

  • West Waterfront

    East Waterfront

  • Gabicce Mare is a small coastal city on the Adriatic sea that relies completely on the tourists influx during the summer season. During the roaring years of great touristic development, specially in the 70s, the settlement has grown unplanned and chaotic according to the individual longing of the local owners, who, out of the blue, found themselves Hotel managers. This resulted in an extremely dense fabric and in an objective difficulty to feel the sea from within the city.On the other hand the locality is placed in an exceptional spot along the Adriatic coast, as the San Bartolo hill, a natural reservoir, breaks the monotonous, flat, sandy landscape of the well known beaches of the Emilia Romagna region.Given the beautiful natural setting and the numerous touristic facilities, the proposal focused on restoring the lost balance between nature and urbanity in order to achieve a

    coherent ecosystem that, while preserving the existing assets, will successfully compete with the glittering, all aperitif and disco, neighbouring cities.The urban strategy focuses on a suturing approach. Five trasversal squares are identified and enhanced in the existing fabric: trough small demolitions, surface treatements and levels adjustemnt these places creates iconic voids amid the too dense buildings and reconnect the rear city to the sea, both visually and physically.The squares are perpendicularly tied by the new waterfront. This promenade extends the mediterranean landscape of San Bortolo right trough the city, and gently creates an hybrid space of transition between the tall hotels and the soft beach. The swimming facilities as well as bars and restaurant become integral part of the system as they facilitate the access to the beach and merge into the natural environment.

    New waterfront and general urban strategy for a small touristic cityGabicce Mare (IT) 2013. Competition Finalist.Area: ca 60 ha. Status: Ongoing final competition stage. Client: Gabicce Mare municipality. In collaboration with: Marchingegno, ComeOnArchitects.

    THOROUGHLY GABICCE.

    OBSTACLEfragments of natural and urban public space are parallel to the sea but have no relation with it.

    CROSSINGProposed public spaces open up direct accesses to the beach with visual corridors. The squares are joints between the fragments.

    UNITYIn between the crossing, new parallel landscaped promenades arise. The new waterfront ties the punctual interventions in a territorial unity.

    MOVEMENTThe new viability diverts the traffic out of the central area. A new roundabout evenly distributes fluxus and serves the new underground parking.

  • East Waterfront

    West Waterfront

    56

    4

    2

    3

    1

    1.Dock square2.Palm square3.Mississipi square4.Town Hall square5.Piazza Giardini dItalia6.Extreme Sport square

    West Waterfront

    East Waterfront

  • PALMS SQUARETaking advantage of the only enlargement along the old waterfront, a ur-ban living room is placed here in order to let people relax and enjoy the breeze. The square, defined by a palm forest arranged in regular grid, acts as a pause along the night and day promenade.

    DOCK SQUAREThe existing dock, deprived of its funcional role, doesnt integrate in the experience of the city despite the sublime views it offers. The proposal make it inhabitable with minimum interventions that add the necessary comfort without negating its rough character.

  • TOWNHOUSE SQUARELaying at the core of the settlement, this plaza con-nects the three promenades with the main access to the city. Its institutional role is underlined by the enlarge-ment, suitable for shows and gatherings, and by the direct view of the beach trough a great staircase.

    MISSISSIPI SQUAREAiming to reconquest the seaside, this square starts from a quiet shaded place to reach, trough a long catwalk, the abandoned Mississipi building on the water. The latter is renewed to host a beach club able to attract people even in the winter months.

  • GIARDINI DITALIA SQUAREThe square is a pivotal joint in the proposal, as it manages to climb with a gentle plane the great hight difference between the higher city areas and the beach.A hidden elevator grants access for all.

    EXTREME SPORTS SQUAREAs counterpoint to the more urbanized plazas, this place stands as the outpost to the discovery of San Bar-tolo natural reservoir. Here the aquatic sports find their facilities and old styled caravels bring the tourists to inaccessible beaches at the foot of the hill.

  • West Waterfront

    East Waterfront

  • The city is like a huge market: a place where knowledge, experience and ideas are endlessly exchanged thanks to an ever deeper analogical and digital infrastructure. This is the background within which Rogoredo -a growing suburb of Milan- is likely to develop into an attractive creative and productive centre.A strong perimeter infrastructure allows for new connections to regenerate the existing fabric while on the other hand it defines a border, a new strong identity for the entire neighbourhood.The open space becomes the opportunity for new hybrid social practices to emerge. The public/private relation is shaped by a gradient of privacy levels, thanks to diverse floor treatments and height levels. A paved plane extends in between the building blocks to serve the commercial areas. The array of small shops, the big market hall, bars and restaurants, the Guest House, the Agora, the Play House, the Wellness House, the Ideas Workshop, shapes a complex and rich urban environment.

    Complimentarily, vast green surfaces seeps into the urban courtyards and link the interior with the exterior of the blocks.As the mobility hubs are located along the reinforced perimeter, a dense fabric of paths constitutes a whole car free core within the area.The residential blocks enhance the traditional Milanese courtyard: a sequence of gates growing in privacy, from the public courtyard, trough communitys amenities on the staircase, trough the distributing galleries to individual entrances, grants an appropriate mediation to the intimacy of actual flats. The intervention is conceived as a complex social organism where shared amenities enrich the private modular dwellings Alongside with the physical intervention, a collaborative digital platform is implemented at the inhabitants disposal: the Digital Market, App and social network, works as a sharing management system to maximize the efficiency of collaborative social behaviours among the inhabitants.

    Urban reactivation and mixed used development for a former industrial area.Milan (IT) 2013. Competition 1st prize.Area: 110 ha. Status: Stakeholders negotiation. Client: Confcooperative Lombardia

    SOCIAL MARKET.

    ACTIVE BOUNDARY NEIGHBOURHOOD GATES MOBILITY HUBS

    1. Rogoredo tower2. Ideas workshop3. Start up house4. Flexible dwellings5. Active market6. Rogoredo hotel7. Medical device 8. Rebuscin house9. Rogoredo 2.010. Eco island11. Rogoredo sport club12. Trapezoid park13. Santa Giulia library14. Cars hub

    1

    2

    3

    4

    5

    6

    7

    8

    9

    10

    1112

    13

    14

  • COMMONFACILITIES1. Kitchen2. Laundry3. Meeting4. Office5. Gym

    FLEXIBLE APARTMENTS

    1

    module

    social galleries flexible dwellings active faade

    90m2 150m2 30m2

    120m2

    2

    3

    4

    5

    Cooperative services scheme

  • The city is the spatial manifestation of the relationship be-tween people and power and results as the stratification of consecutive political visions. Democracy has nowadays lost its connection with the urban daily life and it is mostly sustained without peoples involve-ment; consequently, public space is perceived as the mani-festation of decision-makers and people find it hard to claim their right to it.The recent riots in Greece show how citizenship is now ex-pressed through frustration and friction, as a reaction to top-down decisions, without being constructive.Historically public space was more important than private space; in the Agora, Stoa was the place for discussion and exchange, surrounded by daily activities that constituted the core of the society.The direct democracy of ancient Greece could be the refer-ence for a contemporary urban model which includes mem-bers of all age and social groups, in which stoa as its spatial consequence inspires a new approach to public space.Big urban gestures express a top-down set of mind and tend to neglect the existing layering of the urban realm. The latter resembles a palimpsest that includes successive materializa-tion of the social economical and political conditions that prevailed from ancient Greece to the modern era. However the current economic and social situation asks for flexible and cost-effective solutions that rely on peoples contribution. The crisis should be dealt with as an opportu-nity to introduce an additive approach that would lead to a greater benefit out of the minimum intervention.The proposal provides an intense linear space that will

    awaken hibernating potential for activities to shape the sur-rounding territory that will be unburdened of the existing restrictions to constitute a field enriched with traces of the citys memories.Technology carries along great potential for re-establishing the bond of citizens with the city; by grafting the infrastruc-ture, which is an effective, costly and permanent interven-tion, the city will be provided with a framework for sponta-neous appropriation.Along with the tramline an infrastructural spine is created for small-scale elements to be plugged-in and serve peoples contemporary daily needs as expressed and modified in terms of locality and weather conditions. The mild Medi-terranean climate expressed in a virtual nine-month sum-mer instilled an innate gregariousness thereby affecting the character of their activities and the way they are spatially manifested. Kitchens, tables, lounge chairs, workstations, bathrooms, ponds, projectors, power sockets and Wi-Fi, water fountains, herb gardens, bike repairing stations, gyms create a habitable environment.A phased construction approach allows the proposals ba-sic tenets to adapt to any concurrent social, economic and political changes without interrupting the fluidity of experi-encing the urban reality. The expected appropriation will trigger peoples creativity, stimulate small-scale productions and revive arts and crafts for an alternative lifestyle. It will create the premises for a new practice of democracy, one interwoven with everyday life.

    RETHINK ATHENS.Reconstruction of the main boulevard and of three major squares in the center of Athens.Athens (GR) 2013. Competition, Special Mention (3rd Prize ex-aequo).Area: ca 13 ha Client: Athens municipality, Onassis foundation.In collaboration with: AlsoKnownAs Architects

    Meeting point Linear spine Punctual intervention Diffuse equipment Activity nurseries

    Kat

    o Pa

    tisia

    PsyrriEksarxia

    Kolonaki

    Synt

    agm

    a

  • Masterplan 1.Korai square 2.Dikaiosynis square 3.Omonia square

    1

    2

    3

  • OMONOIA SQUAREThe flux of people, on the squares ground level was until now limited to the perimeter, whereas the real hustle and bustle was taking place in the underground centre of the station.To bring this activity to light, a crater is formed by lifting the square roof- lid off the ground, thus imbuing Omonoia Square with a long lost centripetal dynamic. Part of this dynamic is the transition from the Panepistimiou forest area to a clearing where the outlook of the cascading ponds merges with the reflecting pool in the centre of the squares plateau to create a unifying horizon. The simple and explicit design gesture strengthens its function and character as an urban plaza.

  • KORAI SQUAREKorai due to its psition between two major city nodes, is bound to play a pivotal role. By introducing a linking element in the form of a light metal passageway housing a bike parking, Korai emerges as a piece of connective tissue between two main urban organs enabling them to act in unison. The increasing use of the bicycle as transport mean reinforces the hub like character of this walkway.

  • DYKAIOSSINIS SQUAREA place formerly perceived as bland and dispersed where nobody would enter, is being walled to trigger peoples curiosity. Once inside, the wall contains facilities for small art and craft workshops, that provide an outlet for creative ventures. Anew kind of active appropriation of urban space it thus enabled, with a moltitude of craftmanship items created, reinserting the small scale manifacture in the inhabitants experience.

  • Having lunch after a Mass, outside Agios Dionysios Catholic church on Panepistimiou Street Enjoying a dusky outlook on a sea of green from a wooden terrace

    Arts and crafts explored in the cool shade of Dikaiosynis workshop courtyard on a hot summer noon

    Recreation time under the green shading forest canopy near Panepisti-mious intersection with Omonoia Square

    Book lockers and reading desks sprawling around a book nursery form the backbone of the Book Crossing exchange movement

    A cool breeze emanating from Omonoias Metro station water curtain, offers relief to the crossing of the squares plateau

  • Established in the 1960s with a modernistic masterplan, the popular neighbourhood of Cidade de Deus in Rio de Janeiro failed to accommodate the population needs both function-ally and socially. The double slab buildings set in place were mono functional residential units lacking any connection to the urban life. The space between them, an empty field.During the years the inhabitants struggled to make this space suitable for they lives, extending their houses to ac-commodate growing families, attacking the empty space with illegal shops, workshops, verandas, tavernas and ga-rages and lodgings.Reading the evolutionary process, we recognized the para-digm of the defective design in the sharp separation of pri-vate from public, built from void, defined from undefined.

    We translate the informal pattern of add-ons into a different scale, building a medievally formal framework that undoes the modernistic master plan and admits informal appropria-tion. The ultimate goal is to thicken the boundary line, to turn it from separation into a seamless transition from pub-lic to private and from outdoor to indoor. The new elements acting between the urban and domestic realm, affect both of them reshuffling the apartments from the inside and giving a new public face to the outside, and eventually creating a new urban space.Clusters of buildings surround the newly shaped plazas and the relative residents constitute social cooperatives to run specific activities in each place, ultimately building up an autonomous system of urban facilities.

    NEW INTERFACES IN CIDADE DE DEUS.Social Housing upgrading and public space making with community involvement.Rio de Janeiro (BRA) 2012. ETH Urban Design Research, Zrich.Area: 120.58 ha Status: the project was embraced within the municipalitys guidelines for informal settlement upgrading.

    1960The original set up repeats the same typology without any care about the open air spaces.

    2012The informal buildings extend from the slabs or occupy empty spots, giving character to the voids, turning them into public places.

    Cidade de Deus in 2012: the informal additions are unnoticeable from the original buildings.

  • LONG F ACADE EXTENSIONS

    LONG F ACADE EXTENSIONS

    LONG F ACADE GREEN FACE

    -

    EXTENSIONSBLIND FACADE

    DOUBLE SLABAPARTMENT REDEFINED

    FREE STANDING URBAN ROOMS

    -

    PLAN ADAPTABILITY URBAN ROOF

    DOUBLE SLABREPROGRAMMED

    SHELVESA non-invasive framework is set in place to stress and encourage the on-going process.

    INFORMAL PLAZASThe spontaneous informalization attacks the empty space and expands the interiors. At the same time, the in-between open areas gain a public face.

    MODERNISTICPublic and private are separated by a sharp boundary.

    Facadeextension

    Apartmentsshift

    Freestandingbuilding

    Urban room

    Boundaryadaptability

    Urbanroof

    Ground floorextension

    Greenshelter

    Blind facadeextension

    Slab Reprogramming

    EXTENSIONS CATALOGUE

  • Local connections

    Garbage collection

    Cooperative squares

    Pedestrian commercial streets width 6m

    Alleyway width 4m

    Access for cars/fire brigades/trucks

    NEIGHBOURHOOD ACCESSIBILITY

    COOPERATIVE SYSTEM

  • Masterplan axonometry

  • Model (in brown are the existing slabs)

    TYPOLOGY CROSS SECTION.The existing double-slab building is radically updated by the addition of an external, self-supporting shelf structure. The main structural system, including staircases, is pre-served, but the added surface opens possibilities for a reshuffle of the internal organiza-tion. Keeping the position of the piping, an infrastructural ring of fixture runs trough the building, allowing flexibility, encouraging a wide variety of apartment types.

  • Typical floor plan (preserved in black)

  • In our complex Century we are speaking about global cities where the impact of the social processes deeply influences the urban de-velopment. Its a Century where the network is the basic premise for an ongoing radical transformation. The issues of local urban-ism -immigration, employment, social marginality, sustainabil-ity- nowadays have a large scale influence and need to be studied by looking at Global Cities as complementary knots of a wider network.The networks tend to be physically separated but functionally connected: as a consequence they can make stronger connections between different Global Cities than within the territory to which they belong. This case study focuses on the relations between the network of visibility (economic, society, governance) and the one of invisibility (territorial morphology and infrastructure), on their

    mutual influence regardless of the scale.The purpose is to demonstrate how those complex networks can be read in the case study of London 2012, the first Global City in Europe. The analysis investigates the central structure of Ilford, its socioeconomic set-up as public facilities distribution and pop-ulation diversity, in order to understand the intrinsic potentials of this new London hub. The relation between spatial components and functional needs is the starting point for a strategic interven-tion in the opportunity area, in sight of the upcoming high-speed rail station.Through the elaboration of typological working class block and spatial collective hybridization, the planning intervention aims to give birth to a new form of urban quality able to conjugate global corridors with local hierarchy in one complex urban catalyst.

    Analysis and design proposals for a multifunctional centrality in Ilford, London.London (UK) 2012. FAF Urban Design Research.Area: ca 4,3 ha.

    COMPLEX CITY.

    +9new york city

    +1london

    +12istanbul

    +2.4dubai

    +44mumbai

    +49dehli +48

    dhaka

    +26shanghai

    +20beijing

    +40lagos

    +43karachi +35

    calcutta

    +22das es salaam

    +25manila

    +21nairobi

    +21khartoum

    +3tokyo

    +12jakarta

    +3sydney

    +19cairo

    -1kharkiv

    -0.1st petersburg

    -0.4seul

    -0.3havana

    -1.2bangkok+10

    mexico city

    +16bogot

    +12lima

    +3.2santiago

    +11so paulo

    +3johannesburg

    0berlin

    FOREGIN INVESTMENTS (in millions of USD)

    200 00040 00016 000

    4 000

    19801988

    YEAR

    1

    5

    10

    POPULATION (in milions)

    +10

    +30

    +50

    GROWTH (person per hour)

    1950

    YEAR

    1990

    2025

  • EUROPEAN URBAN SYSYEM

    breakrelevant integrated systemconsolidated systemblue bananastrategic node

    strong relationincreasing relationselective relationsupporting relationunderlying relationpotentional relationbreak

    center

    NETWORK STRUCTURE DEVELOPMENT

    urban region

    centrifugal model-rhine ruhr

    centripetal model-london

    incorporation model-rantad

    EAST LONDON PLAN

    major centre

    district centre

    local centre

    distict line

    DLR

    major road

    motorway

    major watercourse

    green belt and metropolitan open land

    central line

    mainline railway

    crossrail line

    station

    metropolitan centre

    cycle way

    deprived area | brownfield

    existing community place

    Ilford Local And Urban Services Ilford Housing Fabric

  • PP

    FOOTPRINT 2012STATUS: olympic influence, cross rail in progressSTRATEGY: punctual intervention ACTION: colonizationREACTION: temporary centrality

    FOOTPRINT 2018STATUS: post olympics, crossrail arrival STRATEGY: emptying intervention ACTION: reconnection REACTION: complex density

    FOOTPRINT 2025STATUS: crossrail effect, ilford gateway STRATEGY: disperse intervention ACTION: polarization REACTION: hybrid cluster

    horizontally as local facilities

    verticality as a global service

    synergy as a polar interven-tion

    COMPLEX DENSITY

    HYBRID CLUSTER

    working classas a wide spread

    vertical livingas a preference

    garden as a neces-sity

    urban spaceas a collector

    transportas a magnet

    parking as a colonized space

    TEMPORARY PARASITE

    mall as an opportunity

    olympics as aglobal catalyst

  • Inner courtyard of the Hybrid Cluster

    Ground floor plan

  • How would you like to have a favelado as neighbour?What if the poor could afford a luxurious lifestyle?What if the rich could enjoy the favela street life?An empty space, claimed under the pressure of real estate developers of Barra de Tijuca on one side and by a grow-ing popular city (Cidade de Deus) on the other, becomes the occasion to test a new hybrid city, negotiating the mod-ern (and modernist) lifestyle of the condominium feado

    (gated high-rise) with the intense social life of the favela, and defining a strong physical border in order to preserve the existing void, considered an important asset in its own.Social behaviours are related to typologies, and the mix of types becomes mix of lifestyles as islands with peculiar characters interlock with each other.The informal modifications of formal buildings are used as a tool to develop usual types into a brand new urban fabric.

    Strategic Planning for a new city, negotiating between favelas and real estate developers.Rio de Janeiro (BRA) 2011. ETH Urban Design Research, Zrich.Area: ca 6,5 km2

    LINHA METROPOLITANA DE TIJUCA.

    DENSITY COMPARISON.Taking position to preserve the huge existing void in the middle, while provid-ing both developers and slum dweller with extra space, puts the issue of density at the core of the project. The proposal refuses the homogeneous, mid-sized, empty-offices-filled fabric of contemporary real estate developments, and concentrate the construction along the existing infrastructure preserving the hollow centre. The linear structure of the new development literary connects the poor north with the rich south and allows for unpredictable hybrids to emerge.

    Centro Metropolitano de Barra.FAR 1.2Real Estate approved project.

    Single Story Building.FAR 1Covering the whole surface.

    11.5x Plan Voisin.FAR 7.2Le Corbus 60 stories skyscraper.

    Linha Metropolitana de Barra.FAR 2.7Counter Proposal.

    12x Burji Kalifa, Dubai.FAR 5.2A 10km tall skyscraper.

    12x Parliament Palace, Bucharest.FAR 5.3Worlds largest civilian building.

  • popular neighbourhoods

    Barra de Tijuca

    The new dense city protects a virgin wetland

  • Preserved Void

    Hybrid City

    City of God

    Barra de Tijuca

    Masterplan

  • Typological layering1.preserved void 2.high density slab 3.medium density fabric 4.facilities 5 green belt 6 big boxes

    Infrastructural network1.river 2.light rail,main axis 3.bike path 4.highway 5.regional road 6.city gate 7.civic boulevard 8.rural path

    Urban villages1.downtown 2.suburbs 3.civic centre 4.condominiums 5.production

    Punctual entities1.plaza and library 2.sport centre 3.market 4.stadium 5.mall 6.mountain 7.s.e.s.c. 8.arena 9.picnic area

    Model

    1

    2

    3

    4

    51 2

    3

    4

    5

    6

    1

    3

    2

    4

    6

    5

    7

    8

    9

    1

    2

    3

    4

    5

    6

    7

    8

  • Assumed that The Infrastructure is the power unit of the American city, the sine-qua-non condition, as one of the former leading city shrinks to a pre-urban state, the Project aims to maintain its main structure and to reshape it around the same structure.We stated to reveal the hidden meanings of the infratructure and to fiund new uses, by focusing our efforts on the service spaces, the left-overs, the scraps that the engineering work necessarily demands.Everything that sits inside the block (isolato in Italian, isolated in the litterary and metaphorical meaning of the word) will be shaped by uncontrollable, already on-going, processes (the return of The Wild somewhere, the birth

    of artificial worlds somewhere else) . The Projects ambition is to show the natural evolution of a system creating urban-ity trough pure connection, a system which carefully avoids congestion but which gives an open support to unpredict-able spaces. If the actual demographic decline keeps going, the next Detroit will be a smaller, but not less broad, city, with a new relation with nature, no more opposed to its network but mingled with it.Detroit will be a city anyway if it maintains its back-bone in which the real urban life takes place: a Perimeter of Urbanity will garrison a wild territory and the Infrastructure will turn into the object of the city itself instead of a mere service.

    Territorial strategy for a new spatial and transportational organization of the shrinking city.Detroit (USA) 2010. FAF Ferrara Urban Design Research.Area: ca 1180 km2

    ELECTRICITY OF DETROIT.

    Vision 2050: The proposed strategy defines a new perimeter.

  • BOUNDARYA new infrastructure layout coagulates interest around a defined perimeter

    HIERARCHYThe inputs from analysis are taken as guide-lines to stimulate the on-going differentiation

    80%of congested roads

    20%of congested roads

    o

    18000001849568 3067 miles

    951270

    285704

    1600000

    1400000

    1200000

    800000

    600000

    400000

    200000

    1700

    1800

    1850

    1900

    1950

    2000

    miles of built roads

    PO

    TEN

    TIA

    L

    population

    1000000

    CONGESTIONAlthough the metropolis appears formless, the statistics revealed that a peculiar field of activity is clearly concentrated around a recognizable area.Traffic shows where Life is.

  • 2050Three different linear cities, one transport system

    2040An Urban Perimeter

    2025Key Infrastructural Knots

    2015Grand Central Station, connecting the local and the national system

    Grand Central Station.

    THE INFRASTRUCTURAL NETWORKWe stated to focus our efforts on the infra-structure as we felt it to be the sole public field in a more and more private city; be-sides, as the graph shows above, while the population decreased, the miles of road kept growing leaving a potential, large public space in-between.The project aims to create a new Urban Pe-rimeter which would give Identity to a new Metro-City by re-marking three existing roads.The Perimeter will become an axial attrac-tor for the public facilities while acting as a boundary against the uncontrolled expan-sion of the city. His infrastructural nature will connect the existing realities among them and on a larger scale to the national high-speed rail network.

    THE INHABITED TERRITORY

    4425100 inhabitants

    1291500 inhabitants

    10135 km2 630 km2

    437 inh/km2 2050 inh/km2

    THE NEW METRO-CITY

  • SUBURBAN LANDMARKSGratiot Ave.

    PATTERNSThe Infrastructure seeps into the existing urban texture re-defining and consolidat-ing its pattern according to the character deduced from the analysis: it results in a different relations road/block for each one of the main axis.

    MIXED ELECTRICTRANSPORTFollowing Obamas recent investments in electric vehicles development, the project tries to head the transport energies to a coherent urban organisation. Each station declines itself according to its surroundings, becoming, first, an aggre-gation point for an ever moving society.

    OPPORTUNITIESOne of the projects main challenge is to generate an urban transformation without modifying the urban texture itself. All the efforts are spent in the spaces in-between the proper living areas and the infrastructure, finally making them touch. This would eventually create a new network overlaying the old citys fabric.

    URBAN CENTERSWoodward Ave.

    RURAL PARKWAYHall Road

    New Urban Light Rail

    Interstate 94 Montana-Canada

    Main urban Roadway

    Regional Commuter Rail

    Interstate high-speed Rail

    Schools and Universities

    Entertainment

    Industrial Fields

    Parks and Cemeteries

    Hospitals and Clinics

    Shopping Malls

    Pontiac

    Downtown Detroit

    Mt Clemens

  • www.partipris.eu