urban design

Since ancient times, humans chose to settle near the sea or navigable rivers. In absence of motorways, railways and airports, water provided the means of faster, cheaper and safer transportation.

In a time when transport by water was vital for commerce and flow of goods and ideas, this new capital would isolate itself within its context until nowadays. This new capital was chosen not only far from navigable water routes, but also on highlands, making it today the second highest situated capital in Europe. The heat around the court developed in Spain a pure-blooded capitalism, so-called financial capitalism, based on the capture of income and proximity to power, which is typically seen in

Madrid and remains today the dominant form of capitalism in the country.

In the past twenty years, development under the umbrella of political favour seemed to be an urban planning mechanism that lead Spain to an economical boom based on real estate development. The current crisis of construction in the periphery of cities has become a matt er of global concern. This crisis results from the construction in and around cities under the speculative economic forces of the banking and real estate complex that feeds on the dream of home ownership.

In the late 1970s, after forty years of global isolation and stunted development due to the dictatorship of Francisco Franco, Spain was ready to take o , and the country entered a period of prosperity.

Integration in the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1986, and in 1992 the country successfully rebranded through the simultaneous hosting of three high-profile international events: the Barcelona Olympic Games, the Universal Expo in Seville, and European Capital of Culture in Madrid. These events helped to kick-o a delirious decade and a half of real estate speculation.

During these economic boom years (ending abruptly with the financial crisis of 2008), most of Spain su ered from predatory development, driven by a lack of vision (innovation opportunities), fast money making agents (real-estate market), and “partners in crime” lax urban regulations coupled with corrupt administrations. The “brick economy or construction bubble” produced transitory benefits for many, but it mainly fueled the merciless banking industry.

With the burst of this bubble and the arrival of one of the deepest crisis in Europe, Spain was awakened to the grim reality: derelict ghost towns, high rates of unemployment, and low expectations for economic recovery. Bubbles that spur overbuilding and subsequent busts are far from being a localized event; it is now happening similarly in countries like China, where there is a divergence between the population’s housing demands and building rate indicators.

Real estate speculation is fueled in part by signature architectural projects that become emblematic of development.

There is great political power in iconic architecture, nowhere is this more evident than in the “Bilbao E ect,” named for the Guggenheim outpost that served as a touchstone for “starchitecture” debates and a cheerleader for new development. Many municipalities viewed a building by a ‘name-brand’ architect as crucial to their city on the global and mass media map. 

In 2009, the government of the city of Madrid decided to demolish a public swimming pool in one of the liveliest districts of the city. The intention was to build a modern sports complex, under a competition held during the boom years. But later, with a disastrous economic situation in the country and no budget for its realization the result became a huge void of 5500 square meters. Shortly before the 15-M Movement 2011, which called for a more participatory democracy, the initiative of the neighbors of La Latina and groups of young architects proposed to reclaim the public space lost by political inaction. This open contemporary square, not only opens up to all kinds of activities and social relations, but is also an experiment that demonstrates to the administration and experts the viability of a publicmanagement of the square, reformulating the relationship between citizens and the city.

In the case of late 2000s Madrid, this meant selforganization of young architects in order to collaborate and try to reactivate a city suffering of a heavy crisis. In this context of a moribund city and a desintegrating urban landscape, young architects become activists in order to reactivate the urban potential. Rather than relying on top-down approaches and the real estate industry, political decision-making that is limited by local government mandates, bott om-up initiatives became survival reactions.

TOP-DOWN INFRASTRUCTURE

FRAGMENTED SUB-URBAN

PLACES FOR EXPERIMENTATION

Los Angeles sits on a hostile landscape – its terrain is comprised of swampland, flood plain, desert, mountain, and coast. There are simply not enough natural resources to support a city of its size and population. With an ecological footprint greater than the state of California, Los Angeles only exists because of the infrastructure that supports it. Infrastructure is the lifeline that has allowed this unlivable territory to be transformed into the 2nd largest metropolis in the United States. Los Angeles depends on the resources delivered to it through its infrastructure in order to survive.(1)

Once a traditional river that flowed through the landscape, Los Angeles had a detrimental impact on the developing city due to constant flooding. So for the city to continue to grow, the river needed to be controlled. The natural Los Angeles River was transformed into the urban drainage system pictured on the left.

The LA River controls the landscape through a super e icient infrastructure that allowed for the development of the rapidly expanding city up to the edge of this new riverfront, with no threat of flooding. With this newly engineered river, new real estate opportunities developed. This new river was now able to organize easements, right-of-ways, and the placement of utility infrastructure.(2)

Notice the development in the image to the left - highways, factories, and homes have been developed up to the edge of the river - this would have never been possible with the natural river’s threat of flooding. 

This tool looks at the urbanization of the suburban territory and the fragmented urban conditions that have resulted from the city’s rapid urbanization. Los Angeles is a fragmented city. An amalgamation of urbanized suburbia, the city has no true center. Instead, it is a multi-nodal city.

By 1960 the scale of LA was staggering and unprecedented. Los Angeles was not a simple hub and spoke industrial city with boulevards and rail lines radiating outward from a central downtown core. It was, in the words of one scholar of the period, a “fragmented metropolis”-a multi-headed beast with no one true center. Its system of urban organization was something that Easterners and Europeans could not fathom(1). Los Angeles is a city that developed with a sense of urgent density.

As a fragmented metropolis, LA is the way it is today due to its non-traditional development. The physical, social, infrastructural, cultural, political conditions surrounding its growth allowed for an extremely diverse landscape to flourish. Los Angeles’s physical form was shaped by a rapid urbanization that occurred simultaneously with the introduction of public transportation, the automobile, and as a response to the dense urbanization of other US cities.

Today, LA has become a dense urban field, no longer with the option to sprawl horizontally; the city has begun to fall back into itself. There are many LA. It is so saturated, so dense, that the city must be broken down into small nodes of activity and commerce. It is because of this that the region is a fractured and has a subjective sense of place. Moreover, now, as it infills, this smaller scale emphasizes the role of the individual and individuality. 

In the third tool, we present how the ideas of Los Angeles, as an experimental field, fluctuate between scales.

Modern architects believed that new conditions of lifestyles and technology should be given a fresh interpretation, rather than being forced into the forms of previous eras.

Among the iconic buildings of LA, one could mention “The Millard House” (Frank Lloyd Wright), “Schindler House” and “Lovell Beach House” (Schindler) and the “Kauff man House” (Neutra). The Case Study House Program was an experimental residential house development aiming to make eff icient modern homes for the housing boom caused by the end of World War II. Important houses such as “The Eames House” (Ray and Charles Eames), “The Stahl House” and “The Walter Bailey House” (Pierre Koenig), contributed to the development of Californian Modernism. The complexity of the interchanging ideas between city and house, might be best expressed in some of John Lautner’s buildings, such as “The Sheats Goldstein Residence”, “The Elrod House” and “The Chemosphere”. The Californian modernists laid ground for a new generation of experimental architects that furtherexplored this interchange of ideas in the postmodern city.

A progressive environment evolved aroundarchitects such as Frank Gehry, Thom Mayne and Eric Owen Moss, and the establishment of The

ADAPTING URBAN AVENUES 

EXCHANGE INTERFACE 

INTEGRATED INFRASTRUCTURE 

• The history of this carnival begins in the colonial era of Colombia as a fusion of a triple heritage (European, African and Native American). Christian festivities brought by Spanish conquerors were combined with indigenous ceremonials and the secular rites of African slaves. A mutual reliance continues to
• During the carnival the city is a live, almost surreal show of citizens, from very different high and low socioeconomic classes, coexisting and preserving traditions together.
• The carnival is not held in one specific place, it is a network of events in the whole city with a vibrant atmosphere of celebration rituals constituted by the congregation of diverse social, economic and physical elements that represent the identity of Barranquilla.

• The design of public spaces can help or disrupt the possibility of meeting, seeing and listening to people.
• Beyond a macro event that takes place once a year, the carnival represents for many people a year round cultural preparation.
• Culture is a vital part of urban life, however cultural facilities are often limited to aff luent areas.
• Fábrica de Cultura aims to become a physical framework to enhance the creative potential of Barranquilla, and its insertion in the underutilized Historic Center, as an urban catalyst. Futhermore it will provide a new space for teaching creative arts and traditions centered around Barranquilla‘s famous Carnival.
• Initiated by the municipality, the facility will extend access to cultural education, especially to residents of the impoverished Barrio Abajo.
• Creative economy, social equality, urban transformation and environmental concerns are the main ingredients of this piece of integrated cultural infrastructure.

• Industrialization and mass production allowed higher efficiencies, lower
• prices and larger quantities while securing a comfortable level of supply for most industrialized countries.
• In many European cities mass consumption in highly specialized supermarkets and department stores has been the consequence and become the norm, whilst the weekly market has turned into a newly branded farmer’s market.
• In Latin America however, markets remain the main distribution system of food and produce.
• The central market of Barranquilla provides for most citizens of lower income, who come from the furthest areas of the city.
• Nevertheless, this urban market still provides an important interface for exchange, social cohesion and economic growth.
• “The existing public market located along the Mercado Canal faces serious environmental problems and the accessibility to the market is poor because of the contaminated canal.
• Thus, the relocation of the public market and the rearrangement of the street vendors are the major incentives to the market facilities project.
• The basic idea of the project is to ensure easier accessibility and to integrate market activities in the central district.”