1 minute read
MENDING CHASMS
This chapter explores how urban public neighborhoods divided by
From the 1930s to the 1990s, Barcelona began its rapid eastward expansion towards the Besòs River. Urban developments, metro system growth, and the 1992 Olympics, all contributed to large-scale infrastructural implementations in the city. The infrastructural development forms new urban centers and accommodates more urban activities, but at the same time fragment the city with the chasms and the terrain vague (Solà-Morales, 1995) it creates.
Advertisement
As ideologies of walkable, sustainable, green healthy cities emerged at the end of the 20th century and still trending in the 21st century, urban park/recreational space projects that function in infrastructural scale and scope are introduced to the city to bridge the existing gaps by interweaving itself between grey infrastructures.
These designs straddle the field of urban planning, urban design, landscape architecture, and urban furniture design simultaneously, shuttle between the city’s scale and the body scale.
Design strategies that foster body-scale space-making are particularly highlighted in the following analyses, documenting how design can establish in-situ experiences that is not engulfed by the massiveness of the site.
Bicivia 7
designer: batlleiroig (BIR) year: 2018 description: The linear park/bike lane/footpath is a project that establishes a new urban network that connects Barcelona city with the adjacent outskirt district. The design extends the end of Diagonal Avenue (the longest arterial road that cut through the city) and runs parallel with Highway B-23, threading the urban fabric by providing a 1km (0.55 miles) long, accessible walkways and bike lanes. The linear park is active with fluid movements and intermittent corners of lingering. Without any stairs, the design gently ramps up and down and interweaves itself among highways. The design demonstrates how by yielding 1-2 car lanes to pedestrians and bikers, the lived experience and public well-being can be significantly transformed.
