Interlinking spatial voids with an open infrastructure of public spacein inter-urban and rural area
In the framework of the pandemics we have collectively experienced limited freedom in terms of mobility, spatial and social experience and perhaps it has never been so acute to address a new global standard in which our urban realm can be shaped within a context of environmental inclusiveness.
By addressing the term spatial voids I refer to all those urban and inter-urban (i.e. between urban settlements) milieus where obsolete structures (for example spatial left-overs as: industrial sites or unfinished or abandoned suburban developments) find themselves in or inherently deal with a state of desolation.Such spaces are a loss to the realm of the existing built environment. For this case neither real revalidation nor a revalorization has been addressed in order to reestablish new healthy spatial relationships. This vision proposes the redefinition of such empty structures as urban cores, acting as open global containers working as the frame for a complex system of public space where direct and indirect interactions may occur. By plugging in a network of adaptable paths inside the cores, each with its own theme, multiple public functions can manifest themselves on the same spot, resulting in new confluence areas.
Design adaptability can only be created by breaking the rigidity of the raster and by using it as the frame for its development. Therefore, the gesture to be used juxtaposes grid structures with flexible, organic path-entities “grown” out of and into them. The potential for expansion is a fore given condition as the path-entities work between two or more such stated cores as interconnections . Inside the confluence cores various possibilities with multiple scenarios are to be envisioned.
Hanging gardens or bike paths, rehabilitated ecological pedestrian walkways or paths in which mediated cultural “street” events take place are just a few examples.
Due to the all encompassing vision, this project can be undertaken everywhere in the world, the condition is to define an origin point (core 1) like an abandoned site and start from there. The public functions and the connective paths can be stated and designed collectively by a local community focusing on the needs of the place. The next step is to expand in the urban/suburban and rural space in an organic, adaptable and unintrusive manner until the next connection point (core 2) is reached and redefined. The process is reiterative.
