CHANGE OF PERSPECTIVE
“The spatial task is no longer to embed the road in the landscape, but to de-
sign a mobility landscape, in which infrastructure, urban development and landscape
are combined”.
Paul Meurs
Looking at the city out of the transport gives completely different views on
the urban environment. Speed, windows framing scenes, change in height of terrain
when the road goes up and down open new perspectives not accessible for pedestrians
and are as important and crucial aspects of mobility as movement itself.
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
Contemporary urban planning and architecture tend to be focused on design-
ing a city from the pedestrian point of view without any respect to those who look
at the city from the transport infrastructure network. Completed according to all the
regulations and requirements, transport infrastructure is buried underground, locked in
tunnels, hidden and distant from as many places with possible interaction with pedes-
trians as possible. This is due to the noise pollution, safety and accessibility. However
transport infrastructure is being used by the same people and hiding it takes away pos-
sibility of looking at the city from a different perspective as well as masks one of the
most essential parts of contemporary metropolitan life – mobility.
Mobility is inseparable part of the city life nowadays. “A system of transport
is a necessity, which, like the respiratory system of the body, we take entirely for grant-
ed as long as it is working well” (Clark, 1957). Infrastructure facilitates city growth
and development, but at the same time asks for space, maintenance and cuts urban
fabric into ill-connected parts where voids and intermittent spaces created by transport
networks become hardly appropriate for people and have no social life. The change
of the space is noticeable not only for a pedestrian observer, but also for the one using
transport infrastructure.
Main intention of this project is to rethink an existing relation between mo-
bility network and buildings and recreate a streetscape in a complex housing model
existing in close proximity to urban transport infrastructure.
Railway corridors of Estació de França are considered as an area of interven-
tion. It is proposed to reuse and develop remnant spaces within dense urban context.
There are additional points of attention in the project framework:
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to provide urban social housing developments (to keep neighbor-
hood inhabited by local people);
-
to improve mobility system (to reduce the load on road infrastruc-
ture and make use of existing tunnels and railroads) and its accessibility for people;
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to increase accessibility of the transport network;
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to improve connection between the coastline and the city;
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to create continuous environment appropriate for pedestrians;
-
to develop a housing model existing in close relation with the trans-
port infrastructure.
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TRANSPORT & DOMICILE:
an architectural intervention to integrate transport infrastructure with housing for Barcelona.
Efimovich Alina