METROPOLITANIZE: how to live between cities? (EXPOSURE)
METROPOLITANIZE: how to live between cities?
COAG EXHIBITION. College of Architects of Galicia A Coruña April 12-May 11
This exhibition summarizes the work of the CESUGA-University College Dublin 2010-2011 4th year project workshop, which investigates the Coruña-Ferrol metropolitan context and its regeneration potential as a basis for socio-spatial integration strategies. The interest of the exhibition is to try to share the reflection on the use we make of the territory, understanding METROPOLITANIZE as the action of sizing a metropolitan area so that its territory finds environmental balance and social cohesion. Asking: How to live between cities? We ask ourselves about the need to respond to improving the quality of life of the inhabitants of Urban Areas, and to the future of our life as a community.
The last twenty years of territorial transformation in Spain have been accompanied by the physical expansion of urbanization processes, characterized by "colonization" with spatial discontinuities of rural space, excessive and often uncontrolled consumption of land, and the overcoming of traditional administrative boundaries.
More than 36 million Spaniards already live in Urban Areas, 80.7% of the total population, and in them we find an even greater proportion of their jobs and economic activities. The consequences of this increase in relationships in increasingly larger and urbanized spaces encourage the process of diffusion of the city in the territory, and a new form of settlement in which more and more inhabitants reside in spaces located between cities and towns. that bring together urban areas.
The challenges that these changes pose are already evident for the reconciliation of work and family life, for the environment, for energy efficiency, pollution and waste management, for the planning and management of infrastructure and public services.
The territorial fragmentation that this process has generated has increased the surface of artificial land (mostly urbanized) by 29.5%. To which we must add social fragmentation, discrimination based on economic income and the increase in the difference in quality of life depending on the situation of the place of residence.
In Galicia, starting in the eighties of the last century, the spatial growth of cities and the reorganization of the central spaces of urban areas accelerated. It began and became widespread, also affecting small and medium-sized cities, the diffusion of the city in the territory, and the increase in land consumption. The municipal administrative spheres were overwhelmed and, in the absence of adequate administrative and management frameworks, the problems of metropolitan disarticulation, rural abandonment, territorial conflict on the coast and the most dynamic edges of metropolitan areas became more acute. In this misgovernance of the territory, the available planning instruments, urban or territorial, are little or not at all adequate for the need to control and size this new phase of an urbanization process that in Galicia is very young and intense.
Very quickly, a true “historical break” has occurred with the traditional compact city model. These are the effects of technological change and consumption, and our most dynamic cities are immersed in processes that European cities have had to face in previous decades.
Today we live in a situation marked by a profound reorganization of the internal space of the city, at a social, functional and morphological level, as well as by the configuration of new forms of growth and typologies of urban areas such as leisure spaces, polygons without industry, naturalized spaces, closed or walled urbanizations, peripheral centers, etc., raising multiple questions about the sustainability of the new forms of organization of the city and the territory. The territorial, functional and social change is very profound, and yet, due political and social attention has not been paid to it. Despite its dimension and the scope of this new territorial reality, its recognition is limited both in the field of public policies as well as in their treatment and scientific analysis, and by not taking it into consideration it is generating environmental, economic and social mortgages.
It is probably in metropolitan processes where the new condition of the urban and the scale and organization of the contemporary real city are most clearly manifested. In its most basic acceptance, a metropolitan area is a polynuclear urban area that forms a unitary residence and work market, and represents an increase in scale of the collective living space.
We already inhabit this new urban dimension, the contemporary city is part of the territory without having defined its limits and without yet knowing the extent of its relationships. We cannot deny its existence, it is a space full of contradictions and opportunities that we must think about in different scales and areas, from the territory to the city, from globality to its regional context.
University training and that of future architects must participate in the transformation processes of our territory, and offer society its reflection on alternatives for its improvement, promoting ethical enrichment and the debate of ideas from the social function of the architect. The University can offer an integrative global perspective that should help us understand central issues for territorial and urban sustainability such as the relationships and interdependencies between the different parts of urban areas; between large cities, medium-sized cities, small cities and rural centers. Assessing the prominence of the new functions of the territories, the role of the city in the agglomeration and in the territory, or the environmental effects of the generalization of the dispersed city model that consumes land indiscriminately and comes into conflict with life in community and the values of the compact city.
PROJECT WORKSHOP
This exhibition summarizes part of the work of the 4th year project workshop of CESUGA-University College Dublin 2010-2011, which investigates the Coruña-Ferrol metropolitan context and its urban regeneration potential as a basis for socio-spatial integration strategies. If the interest of this exhibition is to try to share our reflection on the use we make of the territory, by METROPOLITANIZE we understand the action of sizing a metropolitan area so that its territory finds environmental balance and social cohesion. With the action of METROPOLITANIZE we affirm the interest in providing a response to the area in which the majority of the population already resides. Asking: How to live between cities? We ask ourselves about the need to respond to improving the quality of life of the inhabitants of Urban Areas, and to the future of our life as a community.
The workshop addresses major issues that today shape the evolution of cities and life in urban areas, conservation-protection versus renewal, containment versus unlimited growth, concentration (European city model) versus dispersion (North American model), multifunctionality versus specialization, or integration and cohesion versus segregation and fragmentation. The workshop classes support the development of a methodology specific to each student, promoting in architectural culture sensitivity towards its territorial dimension, delving into the project mechanisms of the formation and transformation of the city, and acquiring critical capacity for diagnosing problems. and formulation of alternatives.
From the point of view of economic, social and environmental sustainability, the workshop proposals try to give value to our resources, working with what we can activate to be competitive, highlighting that indiscriminate consumption of land is not necessary to develop, and To solve the imbalances in the settlement system, and the territorial disintegration, it is necessary to recognize the dimension of our social and economic activity in the territory.
GOALS
In the workshop the student is introduced to planning, territorial organization and city design. To do this, we integrate interdisciplinary visions that allow a link between strategic planning, territorial transformation at a metropolitan scale, local development in a small municipality in the urban area, and critical reflection on the current use of existing concepts and techniques in urban planning. Serving as a basis for the student to develop small and large-scale urban projects, understanding from the creation process that the design and construction of an architectural project is an indivisible action of urban planning and the transformation of the territory.
The methodology of this course consolidates that developed in the previous three years of the bachelor of architecture, based on the scales of the village, the neighborhood and the city, through knowledge and analysis of data, the development of concepts and ideas, and in the definition of results, understanding that the architectural object is explained in the territory and with its immediate surroundings in all project phases.
In this exhibition we can see proposals from different groups of students, who, based on problems and potential at a metropolitan and local scale, promote the organization of space between Coruña-Ferrol through strategies that implement new territorial uses and enhance existing ones in order to improve territorial cohesion, multiplying functional relationships, and reinforcing social diversity.
The local scale in these two courses is located in the Rías de Betanzos and Ares. Its integration into the Coruña-Ferrol urban area and the dimensioning of its growth is planned from the activation of its potential at the regional, metropolitan and local level. The proposals focus their possible growth on the towns of Betanzos and Ares, which allows discussing their urban model from the design of a new neighborhood on the scale of a town, to the design of an expansion in relation to the regeneration of its historic center.
The design of metropolitan and local strategies that complement each other at different scales of the territory allows the implementation of uses that try to respond to mobility, economy and social inclusion, in order to improve territorial cohesion. Throughout the year, the student manages the territorial scale from the reflection of the existing networks to the space around the buildings, until reaching the design of a building resulting from the proposed strategies.
The architectural project arises from the approach of a real need identified in group work, the markets or research centers that can be seen in this exhibition extend the reflection on how the current city must be built so that it maintains its power to generate spiritual, cultural and economic wealth for each of its inhabitants. These projects investigate and imagine what the buildings and public spaces that allow this should be like. Those presented here have been chosen for their program proposal, which tries to enrich the relationship between neighborhoods and discusses how to make their residents citizens.
Toni Garcia
Project Workshop Coordinator 4th year
CESUGA-University College Dublin