Caceres, Spain

"Relationships"

Europan 10 Student housing and masterplan project for Ribera del Marco - Caceres (Spain, 2009)

Fabio Baccini, Rossella Giorgi, Gianluca Lavalle, Federico Marconi (SP)

Study area Ribera Del Marco represents the vital east border between different parts of the city of Caceres and the rural/wild landscape that will be the future area of urban growth.

Thus representing a linear edge characterized by dissimilar urban developments during the years, Ribera del Marco has also unique features inherited from historical usage of the area and from its peculiar natural environment. Those elements could be the turning point to develop a new, nature connected, urban relieving “strip”, planned with precise key concepts in mind. Key concepts of our proposal for study and project area are people and space relationship, person to person relationship, water usage. These ideas come from the conviction that to be livable, a place has above everything else to be capable of generating relations. Architecture can be the spark that ignites contact and relations, such as physiological space where different users can come into contact. Aesthetics can be secondary, preferring relation within places.

People actions can determine the identity of a space. We suggest visions that, through the reordering of potential and energy, create conditions that can stimulate encounters and exchanges. Design of new public places can come from a complete study of their interactions with people, throughout observation, documentation, interviews which lead to the construction of storyboards and ideal scenarios: studying interactions in order to find hidden potentials.

A space is alive when it holds at the same time or even at staggered hours people of different ages, interests and social groups: senior citizens in the morning sun, at lunchtime workers on a break, in the afternoon children playing after school, the kids with skateboards, someone reading a book or chatting under a tree, in the evening someone goes for a drink and so on.

In these times there is a huge absence, of and in, public spaces, because we have to change the way to understand them as free and accessible to everyone, overcoming the problem of security just by keeping them alive with significant activities. Cinemas and open-air theatres, bars attract people also in the evening, offering a more wide-spread feeling of safety than any security system.

Key concepts come also by the fact that many small situations, when combined, can generate larger, more significant stories and can solve more efficiently challenging problems for the future Caceres that will also be Culture Capital in 2016. For this goal a very important topic to fulfill is to create mixed type buildings and public spaces,characterized by various and unexpected uses, simultaneously providing the city with new facilities,assuring a green filter area to citizens, foreigners, tourists and students.

Significant problems and solutions concerning the study area are various. First one is reuse of old and archeological working facilities connected with water that we imagined as new public spot for sociality and territorial/ethnographic education. Also wells and ruins along the stream can become vital points just by turning them into bars, restaurants and shops.

Another key feature is to take advantage of landscape instead of leaving it unused or completely overbuilding it with invasive new constructions. That’s the right opportunity for exploiting the riverside abundance of water by creating lots of vegetable garden areas mixed with light residential units for families. Crops, vineyards, vegetables, flowers could be the fruit of a correct water usage and the start for an alternative small economy made by people for the people. Sustainability that creates relationships and shorten distances between people. Old time way of life in combination with new technology is the survival strategy for preserving the countryside’s cultural values and it also represents the answer to the ongoing world economic crisis. A new awareness is the basis for re-discovering nature and its cycles. Sport, relax and cultural facilities will be placed in well definite locations in the same direction of forming coexistence with other uses.

Concerning the operation area, the same key concepts apply in order to fulfill the aims required by the competition theme. Our project provides a student housing solution that can be defined as a “vegetable garden student dwelling”. It is designed as a small village where light impact constructions interact each other together with greenhouses, small gaps between houses covered with shadowing shelters, little squares and meeting points, gardens and orchards. In the western part of the area we imagined the creation of a big market square covered with large canopies of various forms. This space can work as the entrance to the dwelling, positioning itself as a filter in contact with the city and the streets. It also represents the ideal point to place activities such as eco-markets, concerts, exhibitions, barter meetings, flea market, water distribution and many others. The “market place” has an underground parking and a complete solar power energy generator making the most out of the canopies surface for all the dwelling.

Last but not least we decided to keep a part of the water treatment facility of Captation de Agua de Calerizo in the operation area. The buildings have to be renewed with new textures and canopies all around, in order to become the meeting point for water selling and distribution. People coming from the city and students can take their water supply directly in that square, especially conceived for social interaction unified under the significance of the most relevant element for survival in nature.

The northern green area next to the Almazara complex is meant to become a freely usable open space where visitors can enjoy activities and relax. There they can find a natural amphitheater built as big grass tiers, water sprays zones, shadow sheltered zones, gardens and glasshouses for growing, selling or buying flowers, fruit and vegetables and many more.

Europaconcorsi Beta

"Relationships"