SAINT PETESBURG_SUSTAINABLE URBANISTIC PLAN
0
100
water system
Saint Petesburg
Stockholm
300
200
woodland system
400 km
built areas
Washington
Copenhagen
Paris
Amsterdam
Part I: Introduction. Today the theme of a big metropolis is a very actual and important item. The cities are growing in a very frenetic and uncontrolled way becoming from one point of view our pride and from another point our fatality. Of course the city is the celebration of human progress and technology. It is like a container of millions of different stories of different people that came to search for the opportunities for employment and wealth. Unfortunately instead of being a friendly environment the City nowadays is the synonym of a chaos and pollution that sucks out the natural resources and emits tonnes of waste. The pressure of consumption is becoming so great that the renewable resources could become unrenewable. The environmental degradation is impossible to ignore as clean environment is a part of human rights. Besides environmental decline and social instability are two interdependent variables. Urban areas were created for human beings and are very important for their activity but the main problem of many cities is that they have lost human scale and the citizens don’t feel they belong to them. As a consequence we get a lack of responsibility, the lost sense of being a citizen and an arrest of society’s progress. The cities are growing unsustainably from the point of view of natural, physical and human resources. The problem of a big metropolis was studied in the example of Saint Petersburg. This territory is going through an interesting phase. As an ex-soviet block city it is composed of contradictions and impressive transformations. From the soviet times it has inherited a lot of green zones and particular soviet architecture. Today the industrial boom and numerous investments give the priorities to the big commercial projects that had been completely rejected by the Soviet ideology: night clubs, casinos, spas, banks, private restaurants, commercial residences, etc… The speculative nature of the economy and the building market after the ‘Perestroika’ and the economic crisis of 1998 provoked a wave of unchecked development. While in Soviet times the city planning was the prerogative of the state, now it has become the tool for establishing a dialogue with investors. Architectural projects have become a way to show status-symbol and the wealth of customers. Though the Saint Petersburg’s historical heritage has remained quite preserved after all the political changes (both Soviet and capitalistic) the green areas, that were created so abundantly during the Soviet times in order to compensate a lack of living space for common people, are disappearing in an uncontrolled way. The growth of number of cars, a scarce organization of the public transport network, a big amount of private mini buses and a use of low quality fuel created a huge traffic and environmental problem. As a result of all this we have got the bad quality of the urban area and the damaged disunited territory. This work under the guidance of Bernardo Secchi is the reflection about the possibility of the sustainable growth of the metropolis of Saint Petersburg. The first argument concerns the concept of a sustainable project. Following the idea of Herman Daly, sustainable development means progressive social improvement when growth doesn’t exceed the carrying ecological capacity...Growth will increase, while development implies improvement. This definition introduces the engines of sustainability: individual values, ethics, moral, religious and artistic principles have the same importance as economic values. So the sustainable project becomes an engine for economic, social and environmental development. The second point concerns general approach to the project. Very often a city is seen as a built-up territory. As a consequence, a view of nature is something secondary and external to the urban settlement. Our work is a proposal to review this vision and to invert the negative process when the urbanization destroys the natural environment. The recognition of the value of greenery gives the possibility to look upon human settlements as part of ecological system. Our aim is to organize green elements as a connective possibility for ecological system and urban infrastructure. The green network, that unites and protects hydro system, patches of greenery and big areas of wood, was created. Historical city area with some important architecture and historical parks and villas protected by UNESCO was taken into the consideration as a guideline for the development of the network. To proceed, the work was divided into three themes. The first is a coast landscape and it has become an environmental and ecological approach. The second one is the work with the city’s public spaces and the creation of a new equipped north-south axis. As to the last one it has become the work of the revaluation of the ex-industrial areas along the main river Neva.
Saint Petersburg is an important cultural European city and the major Russian port on the Baltic Sea. Due to its strategic position for more than 300 years it has always been an attractive place for people with different commercial, cultural and economical interests. Also nowadays it hasn’t lost its significance. More than forty foreign consulates, more than thirty representatives, a large number of international corporations, banks, industries of different kinds and other businesses are located there. St.Petersburg is the second biggest city of Russia after Moscow. On its total area of 1439 square km 4 571 100 inhabitants are living there. Since its birth in 1703 the city has always expanded its administrative borders. So it is closely connected with the Leningrad Region infrastructure, people’s employment, natural recourses, etc. In these terms the administrative border is rather relative. According to landscape ecology natural and political borders have different logic. The Leningrad Region is a very rich with natural resources: 55, 5% of different woods, 14% of lakes and 17% of swamps are spread on its territory of 84 500 sq km. And all this with a low density of population (in the half of a territory >5 pers/sq km).
existing fields
existing woods
swamp areas
protected woods
railway network
industrial areas
BIOSPHERE: regional scale
built areas and infrastructure
main infrastuctural corridors
TECHNOSPHERE: regional scale
water system and humid areas
system of woodlands and green areas
NATURAL RESOURCES
system of public services
protect built areas
PHYSICAL RESOURCES
Sustainability
SAINT PETERSBURG: TWO WAYS OF GROWING
What does that mean? 1.Our Common Future, also known as the Brundtland Report, from the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED) and was published in 1987. Its targets were multilateralism and interdependence of nations in the search for a sustainable development path. Our Common Future placed environmental issues firmly on the political agenda; it aimed to discuss the environment and development as one single issue. An oft-quoted definition of sustainable development is defined in the report as: "Sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It contains within it two key concepts: • the concept of 'needs', in particular the essential needs of the world's poor, to which overriding priority should be given; and • the idea of limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organization on the environment's ability to meet present and future needs." 2.Herman E. Daly (1938-), an American economist recognized as one of the founders of the field of ecological economics and as a critic of standard economic growth theory. He gives his definition of sustainability:” Development without growth beyond environmental carrying capacity, where development means qualitative improvement and growth means quantitative increase." Daly dismantles some of the arguments in favor of unlimited growth, including the assertion that we can always replace natural resources with manmade ones. He offers a vision of a "steady state" economy that improves its citizens' lives through qualitative improvement with no increase in "throughput" (Daly's word for the materials and energy that the economy turns from raw inputs into waste). Daly calls this development, as opposed to growth, which means using continually more throughput to get bigger, without much qualitative improvement.
Urban restauration
Suburbanization
Hight urban density
Extra-urban infrastructural growth
Ecological system
Replacement of the existing industrial areas with the resindential areas and services
Urban growing and explorations of the new territories
Project proposal
The realization of the project demands establishing methods to prosecute and guidelines to be used. One of them is the METABOLISM OF RESOURCES. It means that the project aims at analyzing and optimizing social and environmental metabolism in order to create a synergetic view between BIOSPHERE (the sphere of natural resources like water, woods, air, etc) and TECHNOSHERE(the sphere of human productive area) .The INPUT of the materials and energy in the territory and then their manipulation in the cycle of the urban activity and production implicates the OUTPUT of these processes: WASTE and EMISSIONS. The project offers a scenario that is one part of our vision of the city in 2050. Scenario are stories which pay attention to the future and they stimulate the creativity of the community through the production of a wide variety of ideas which help to relate uncertain visions about the future with the certain choice of today. The aim of the scenarios is to stimulate the imagination and change our view for long-term visions that could lead us to act differently, expand the limits of our professional knowledge, thus stimulating new capacities. The guidelines of the scenario of 2050 are the values credited to the society. The next step we take is the comparison of our theme with some similar studies. Such examples as Boston park of Olmstead, the green network of Doxiadis for Los Angeles, the plan of Copenhagen or the plan of Stockholm of Markelius show different scales for green elements and detect them in the relation with infrastructure and services. Finally, in order to describe every particular area of the project we used a kind of abacus- the interventions that could be applied in different situations.
1703-1917 MYTH OF A NEW EUROPEAN CAPITAL OF RUSSIA Russia before 1703 is a very traditional and backward country. The new capital was to become a new European ‘door’. The values of the society were intended to be changed. Innovation, knowledge, education, opening to everything new and tolerance to other cultures – the qualities that were appreciated. Yet the new capital had its own way of development and it had typical Russian features such as autocracy, orthodoxy and nationality. Water was the main protagonist of the city. It has always had a dualistic character: fatal from one point of view as the city always suffered from the disastrous floods, prosperous from another point, as it was the most important transport and commercial artery. All new constructions were facing the main river Neva or its canals. New squares and public gardens were born near water as well. Squares had mainly commercial character where markets took place while gardens were open for walks, different holidays and manifestations. The concept of garden as an aggregation place was new to Russia but since that time it has always remained one of the favorite typologies for people to gather. 1917-1991 MYTH OF A PROLETARIAN CAPITAL The XX century brought a lot of changes for the city. WW I, economical, political and social instability, crisis of the monarchy provoked the first October Revolution, then the years of Civil war. At first these changes became a source of inspiration for Russian avant-garde in arts and constructivism in architecture. But new tendencies in literature, theatre, paintings and architecture were cut off when Stalin came to power and thousands of people were taken into concentration camps. The wave of the urban redevelopment was connected with the new dictator’s regime. St.Petersburg was renamed in Leningrad, the function of the capital of the soviet regime was given to Moscow. Stalin tried to push the city which was closely connected with the tsar’s history into the background. A new city’s administrative district was planned in the south in the direction to Moscow. Monumental and ornamental architecture of neoclassic style reclaimed the values which the State wanted to transmit to the people. Planning of the public spaces was to convey the propagandistic and patriotic spirit of collectivity, solidarity and equality. New green planning played a special role. An industrial wave caused a lot of people to move to the city. ‘Kommunalki’ or communal flats when different families shared the same kitchen and bathroom, became a living typology. Public green areas were to compensate the lack of the living space and offered some entertainment and sports facilities.
1991-nowadays MYTH OF THE NORTHEN CAPITAL OF RUSSIA With the new political revolt the values, that had been delivered before by the soviet regime, failed. Leningrad was renamed in Saint Petersburg. The rejection of soviet ideas made people turn towards European tendencies. Frenetic and uncontrolled development led to the false eclectic architecture. Individualization and privatization also echoed in the idea of the public spaces. Pocket gardens and typical Petersburg’s yards that create a porosity urban system are becoming private. Hectares of urban parks are disappearing in order to construct the elite housing. City streets and squares are becoming car parkings.
2050 MYTH OF THE SUSTAINABLE CAPITALE OF RUSSIA In 2050 Saint Petersburg became the first sustainable city of the former Soviet bloc thus giving an example of the possible growth in terms of sustainable development. The concept of sustainability covers not only ecology but also society with its moral, ethical, educational and art values. The main difference is that the society began to plan in long terms, thinking about future generations. The change for Saint Petersburg is primarily the result of legislative actions, which respect the rights of citizens. The city continues to be important on the national and international level in the terms of the improvement of the quality of life and not only enrichment.
Copenhagen During the sixties of the XX century ,in order to avoid the urban sprawl of the fifties, the PRELIMINARY OUTLINE PLAN was compiled that had to orient the city growth towards south and west. 1972_URBAN STRUCTURE PLAN is based on two elements: _main structure: regional crossing corridors; _ regional parks with extra-urban recreational facilities
PHISICAL RESOURCES St.Petersburg of 2050 is a permeable metropolis, easy to access and to transit. There is a well organized network of public transport, pedestrian and bicycle paths which simplify a widespread accessibility. People prefer to use public transport as it has become fast and environmentally friendly. They spend less time in traffic jams. St.Petersburg has chosen a model of a dense and compact city. The way of decentralization reinforced a multi centre system. Every centre of the satellite town has its necessary services and is connected with a network of fast and efficient urban transport. Abandoned industrial areas have been redeveloped for the other urban needs: green areas, residences, art centres, workshops... Besides city planning avoids architectural barriers that created blocked and limited spaces. New areas are being developed with a concept of ‘mixitè’ - hybrid and multiuse design. Old unsustainable constructions are being replaced by the architecture of new morphology and energy efficiency.
Costantino Doxiadis_ Preparatory diagram for Llorin urban planning
Stockholm The experience of the urban planning of Stockholm recalls the interpretation of Howard’s garden city in the reorganization of an urban structure. This urban plan proposes a progressive decentralization of commercial, administrative districts and residential areas connected by an efficient network of public transport. This plan by Markelius draws a system of open spaces connected and continuing the so-called "system of urban green areas".
Rudolf Schwarz_ La Galaxie de la ville-paysage (1949)_
HUMAN RESOURCES The society of 2050 in St.Petersburg is a long-term thinking one. It cares about future generations and thinks about preserving natural resources. The improvement is linked with a new concept of community and individual responsibility. The society of St.Petersburg is creative and innovative, it is open to new cultures and tendencies. Every citizen can participate in decisions relating to his future and has a possibility to collaborate with the local government. Thanks to the development of knowledge, change in lifestyle, creation of suitable services and crime decrease the city has become a more attractive place for a family creation. 90% of the population can reach a green area, a swimming pool or a sports ground within 15 minutes walk. Citizens in for different sports, eat the right food, consume more local food, drink less alcohol, smoke little and have reduced their calorie intake by 30%. The society of St. Petersburg is creative, open and competitive, thanks to the development of the university system, exchange of students and the establishment of workshops in various fields. People spend less time in transport thanks to technological innovations of working and studying on-line. St.Petersburg in 2050 is a metropolis that appreciates pedestrians and cyclists.
La ville paysage The European urban territory is the mythical image of a landscape where settlements like figures emerge above the ground of the countryside. The history of the European cities is a sequence of forms of power. The urban sprawl is the consequence of the mobility growth. It's a shared conviction in the cultural environment of the Weimer’s Germany in the hypothesis that the order of the city has been realized before in the prediction of its extension, then in the organization of its suburbs and countries in a general plan. Scientifically the landscape is considered now to be the physical ground of the human activities. As asserted by Frits Schumacher, the city will not be problematic because of its dimensions, but because of a lack of integrations with its territory. The boundaries of the cities are aleatory, what is more decisive is the geographical whole of this piece of world. The settlement, according to Rudolf Schwartz theory, is more than an agglomeration of houses, it is a holder of a superior order of values: it 's a densification of landscape.
NATURAL RESOURCES Natural resources in St.Petersburg in 2050 are preserved in order to have a high quality environment. According to Kyoto protocol the emissions of CO2 are reduced up to 80%. Also agriculture has become a part of natural resources, many fields cultivate oilseeds rape for biodiesel production. Many kinds of fruit and vegetables are grow locally and are available in the markets and city stores. The waste is recycled and new companies have been created to recycle and design the reused components. New green areas are being created and the old ones are being enhanced according to landscape ecology. The biodiversity of the city and surroundings has increased; some disappearing species have returned to their habitat. Water resources in 2050 are protected and filtered. St.Petersburg in 2050 remains to be an important port paying attentive to its wastes and naval activity. An extensive area of Finland Gulf is used for wind energy production.
READIND OF EXISTING TERRITORY SCENARIO 1_ST. PETERSBURG_MANAGEMENT OF HUMID LANDSCPAE OF FINLAND GULF The coast landscape is characteristic of its environmental value. The elements that constitute this landscape are: wood masses, fields, outside cottages (‘dachas’) and suburban settlements. The network in this case creates an environmental connection, where we can have a concrete application of the landscape ecological principles. The actions in which this ecological aspect can be declined are mainly the construction of river corridors.
SCENARIO 0_SAN PETERSBURG CITY FOR PEDESTRIANS AND CYCLISTS In order to stimulate the use of bicycles the city is covered with a system of pedestrian and bike paths that create a secure network and ecological transport. The network unites existing green areas of urban parks, external woods, protected greenery into one unique environmental system. The network is based on the existing plan of area protected by UNESCO, so it includes also some important historical parks, museums and palaces. In this way the green corridors have both environmental and cultural importance. They also accumulate new services and activities along them and it stimulates people to using them It was decided to analyze the municipality of Saint Petersburg, adding to the administrative borders its environmental resources, external woods and protected areas.
SCENARIO 2_ ST. PETERSBURG_CENTRAL AXIS AND ’INBETWEEN’ SPACES The main aim of the north-south axis is the accumulation of the public resources, like a vertebral column of a minor transversal system, capable to decline the different types of suburban voids of the city. To face this landscape we can relate to the image of porosity, the voids are considered as an opportunity to reconnection different parts of the city. The elements of the north-south axis are: the existing urban tissue of the historical city and of the soviet districts, the public services thickened on it, the green areas , the industrial areas to redevelop and the existing parks.
A new geography was imagined to direct the growth of the city according to a new hierarchy. he ambition was to outline the shape of the growth of the city to ensure the city with a connective tissue of voids. This connective tissue conceives a frame which structures various project interventions. We have subdivided the city into 3 landscapes, according to the type of voids included and to the abacus of interventions proposed for it to create the network of the city connection.
SCENARIO 3_ST. PETERSBURG_RIVER NEVA AND POST INDUSTRIAL REDEVELOPMENT
LANDSCAPE READING OF THE CITY: PROJECT PROPOSAL
The main aim of this landscape is the redevelopment of the river banks and the re appropriation of the character of “the city on the water”, especially of the areas distant from the historical centre. This network structures the redevelopment of the industrial area and the reconnection between the river bank and the residential areas. The elements of this landscape such as the river banks, the industrial areas and the new residential area are to be requalified.
coast landscape
Neva landscape
north-south equipped axis
trasversal equipped axes
EXISTING WOODS
EXISTING WATER SYSTEM EXISTING FIELDS
PROTECTED WOODS
EXISTING WOODS
PROJECT NETWORK
EXISTING FIELDS
PROJECT AREAS
TECHNOSPHERE
PROJECT NETWORK
WATER SYSTEM
BUILT AREA AND EXIXTING INFRASTRUCTURE
EXISTING WOODS
TOTAL EXISTING GREEN
EXISTING FIELDS
EXISTING FIELDS
OUTSIDE PROTECTED WOODS
PROJECTED ECOLOGICAL NETWORK
EXISTING URBAN GREEN
PROJECT AREAS
EXISTING PROTECTED WOODS
EXISTING URBAN GREEN
EXISTING HISTORICAL PARKS
FINNISH GULF
WATER SYSTEM
HUMID ZONES
OUSIDE WOOD
PROTECTED AREAS
PRIMARY CONNECTIVE CORRIDORS
The coast landscape is characteristic of its environmental value. The elements that constitute this landscape are: wood masses, fields, outside cottages (‘dachas’) and suburban settlements. The network in this case creates an environmental connection, where we can have a concrete application of the landscape ecological principles. The actions in which this ecological aspect can be declined are mainly the construction of river corridors.
BUFFER ZONES
SECONDARY CONNECTIVE CORRIDORS
ACTION PLAN
ZOOM IN
WATER SYSTEM PROTECTION
EQUIPPED PARKS
Construction of systems of purifications and reforestation of parts of canals
Protection of wooded areas and creation of recreation zones and crossing areas
ECOLOGICAL CORRIDORS
Requalification of river banks and re-connections with the nearest woods
BUFFER ZONES
Creation of ‘buffer’ zones to preserve agricultural fields, river and water bodies.
EXISTING FIELDS
VILLAGE SYSTEM
TRASVERSAL CONNECTION
The main aim of the north-south axis is the accumulation of the public resources, like a vertebral column of a minor transversal system, capable to decline the different types of suburban voids of the city. To face this landscape we can relate to the image of porosity, the voids are considered as an opportunity to reconnection different parts of the city The elements of the north-south axis are: the existing urban tissue of the historical city and of the soviet districts, the public services thickened on it, the green areas , the industrial areas to redevelop and the existing parks.
EQUIPPED AXIS AND TRAMWAY
IN BLACK PROTECTED BUILtT AREA
ACTION PLAN
AGRICULTURAL PARK
ZOOM IN
Development of the green connections to overcome the division of the city because of the infrastructure system Requalification of the tramway border: realization of the parking car system
TRASVERSAL CONNECTION
Valorization of the structural capacity of the transversal connection in the organization of the residential district
Development of the structural power of the existing service axis.
URBAN CONNECTION
Overcoming of the division between the city and the suburbs with the public transport connection and the creation of the agricultural park
Requalification of the railways borderand overcrossing of the existing limit of the city
EQUIPPED AREAS
Connection between existing public spaces with equipped boulevards.
URBAN PARKS
Connection between existing public spaces with equipped boulevards.
Project of an agriculture park to reconnect the dense city and the suburbans areas
The main aim of this landscape is the redevelopment of the river banks and the re appropriation of the character of “the city on the water”, especially of the areas distant from the historical centre.
EXISTING FIELDS
This network structures the redevelopment of the industrial area and the reconnection between the river bank and the residential areas. The elements of this landscape such as the river banks, the industrial areas and the new residential area are to be requalified.
EXISTING RESIDENTIAL DISTRICT
NEVA BORDER IN RED THE INDUSTIRIAL ZONES IN DISMISSION
WATER BODY TO PROTECT: IN BLACK THE PROJECT NETWORK
ACTION PLAN
ZOOM IN
REORGANIZATION OF NEVA BANKS
NEVA_CENTRAL ZONE
Valorization of the ancient relationships between the city and the river. Protection of the existing urban squares near the water and development of their connection with the tissue of the city.
CONNECTIONS WITH THE EXISTING RESIDENTIAL AREAS
NEVA_BANKS TO RIQUALIFIE
Overcoming of the isolation of the central banks of the Neva, which were the main bands of industrial accumulations before.
ECOLOGICAL BANK
NEVA_ WATER BODIES TO PRESERVE
LINEAR EQUIPPED PARKS
Preservation of water system and organization of leisure spaces.