INTRODUCTION SEVEN OBJECTS AND IDEAS FOR TRANSFORMING THE CITY

In the wake of decades of industrialization, our cities, in their physical and legislative dimensions, are places geared towards productivity. In cities, it is possible – in material terms and relatively easily in the course of daily life – to deliver merchandise, put up advertising announcing a commercial activity, or drive to work. There are rules that regulate these activities, which permit and even promote their performance, and which tell us how, when and where we must carry them out. These rules aim to strike a balance between individual rights and collective interests.

Our cities are a more hostile environment for activities that are not associated with production: trying to sleep in, using a service, drinking clean water free of charge, breathing unpolluted air, having fun without consuming, or walking without getting wet on a rainy day, are all feats in today’s city. The regulatory interest in these “nonproductive” practices has been marginal. When there are regulations that have a bearing on these activities, their intent is generally prohibition or limitation.

Prioritizing productive activities in the city has meant that citizens have been defined as individuals who contribute to productivity. They is allocated to paved roads. However, the designs aim to maintain transparency and visibility in order to prevent vehicles from hitting pedestrians coming out from behind an obstacle that is blocking their view. This logic of use is compatible with replanting street trees, so long as around the trees, like around the street furniture, there is a change of pavement that prevents vehicles from invading the area and allows pedestrians to emerge from behind the trees onto a pedestrian area that is still safe for them.

The combination of shared spaces with islands of green is possible in streets that have a certain width and in squares. If we assume that there might not be enough budget for a complete redevelopment of a section of a large avenue or urban area, mobile elements could be incorporated into the areas paved with traditional asphalt that would restrict traffic during certain hours of the day, specifically after the evening rush hour and before the morning rush hour, and on weekends. These spaces could be used for collective yoga classes, tai chi or Pilates (as is the case in public parks such as Lumpini Park in Bangkok), for sports, or for the installation of small tents or temporary architectural elements for workshops, health care visits or mobile libraries. These elements intended to temporarily rearrange the uses of public space should be designed using a language that avoids a connotation of prohibition and contributes to environmental quality; for example, mobile planters would be more suitable than security fences.

Streets need to be subject to programming, just like museums, cultural centers or sports centers can be. The programming of workshops and activities organized by municipal bodies should be extended into public space: the usual urban landscape should include sports, culture, music, plays, puppet shows, and performances. It can also provide the opportunity to bring citizens into closer contact with health care services (blood drives and various primary care services are already carried out using mobile but also in the subsequent demolition and recycling. The parking spaces, strategically located in the Huerta to control the density of visitors, would be equipped with solar panels. The shared electric vehicle could be outfitted with specific equipment, for example, a refrigerator, so that the cars could be used for storage. The vehicle GPS would contain specific podcasts on the history of the Huerta, leisure offers and environmental prevention campaigns.

Europan Santiago. Site plan, detail. ©Izaskun Chinchilla Architects.

But, moreover, the project aims to empower pedestrians. In many cities around the world – think of Los Angeles, for example, or most Latin American capitals, having a private car means being able to get where you want to go. Your possibilities as a pedestrian are severely limited, not just by distances, but above all by the lack of urban continuity. While the space for vehicles is conceived as a continuum of streets, highways, avenues and boulevards, pedestrians constantly encounter impassable barriers. The caring city, in this sense, must be structured around a continuous pedestrian fabric, no doubt also suitable for bikes and other low-impact vehicles, but which reserves the best connectivity for pedestrians and guarantees universal accessibility, while also inheriting the continuous pedestrian condition of traditional Mediterranean cities.

This is also one of the points to be re-imagined from the garden city model, which has often treated sidewalks as residual spaces that are either not completely continuous or given priority, or which are so deserted, because of very low density, that they are not safe. The neuroscientist and author of In Praise of Walking, Shane O’Mara (2019), goes further by taking “activist” attempting not to stop to wait for cars to pass, interrupting traffic when necessary, since he considers that pedestrians, as a social group, should not “have to ask permission to cross the street”. A city that follows his precepts should be organized around a continuous flow of pedestrian connectivity, which should be considered a priority, reserving the gaps in the natural flow of pedestrians for the passage of vehicles. In this way, the city would begin to generate an active care of its citizens.

Another important aspect of the caring city – with the aim not only of reducing pollution, but also generating active care for citizens – is to recover some of the features of the garden city that Howard envisioned but that were never implemented. I am referring, specifically, to the agricultural belt that was to designed surround the garden city and ensure it could be self-sufficient.

From these parking spaces, located on the perimeter of the Huerta, all trips would take place using public bicycles equipped with a navigator, which can be picked up in the aforementioned parking spaces. These bicycles with a browser would suggest itineraries and leisure activities, updated in real time, avoiding overcrowding in the different recreational areas and allowing for the control of a maximum number of visitors and users.

One of the proposed activities involved choosing a traditional recipe, which could be entered in the bike navigator; it would offer an itinerary through the Huerta to obtain the ingredients, to be purchased directly from the producers in the area. The browser would show the name, surname, address and contact information for the producers facilitating the establishment of commercial relationships with the visitors – normally inhabitants of urban areas. The recipe book from Murcia, rich and extensive, contains, of course, many recipes based on the consumption of products from the garden. They include zarangollo, pisto de la vega media, and mojete. Some ingredients might be kept in the cars or imported to the Huerta from nearby regions, such as rice from Calasparra, and it would visitors to discover the extensive regional cuisine, enriched with products from the Huerta.

Final Year Project. Poster of artificial species in the Retiro Park.

Our predilection for working on rehabilitation projects has led us to adopt different strategies to make biodiversity compatible with pre-existing conditions. In my final year project, The Artificial Repopulation of the Retiro Park, which involved working in a highly consolidated environment, new species and new natural habitats were introduced in a serious of isolated instances. At all times, however, each small intervention was considered an elements in the matrix, ensuring that the maximum distance to the next point did not exceed 20 meters. In a case like the Retiro project, where the intervention was centered on isolated points, additional elements are used provide continuity between the nodes, taking the place of the strips in the Navarre project, outlining connection corridors that can be reinforced in stages.

We might distinguish between two types of strategies in introducing biodiversity into the city: the implementation of corridors and the

Izaskun Chinchilla

Architect, PhD, and professor of Architectural Practice at the Bartlett School of Architecture (London). She is one of the few women architects in Spain who runs her own architecture studio, Izaskun Chinchilla Architects. She has been named by the RIBA as an honorary fellow. She defends a staunch commitment to critical innovation for her profession, connecting architecture with ecology, sociology, and science.