Introduction

The city is perceived from the car, on foot, from the subway, the bus, the train or the tram. Some of these fluxes produce great collective areas which can communicate certain meanings and accommodate all sorts of activities. However, the exclusively functional design approach of most of these spaces hinders the emergence of new uses and accentuates their segregation. At the same time, transportation infrastructure is subject to the requirements of an increasingly efficient mobility. The relentless demand for better performances triggers the creation of new structures and the improvement of the existing ones. This can further aggravate conflicts, as the long planning and construction time spans creates provisional situations that may last for years, even decades. Meanwhile, the city carries on.

To explore the challenges that mobility poses to architects and planners, the workshop employs the Cinemetrics theory. This method, inspired by cinema’s visual treatment of matter-flux, offers an ethnographic approach of closely observing and documenting the movement, gestures and rhythms of everyday life. Students team up with counterparts from other schools of architecture to carefully observe and register the everyday life of these spaces. From the present conditions, they identify opportunities to enhance the urban potentialities of these great collective spaces. Their findings and reflections are the base for an intervention on a few selected sites.

The proposed explorations or localities cover different geographical and historical areas. The selection, which seeks to highlight the transitions and intermediate states, is based on four different temporal phases or situations: in progress, indeterminate, in operation and obsolete. Plaça de les Glòries illustrates the space under construction, the L9 stations serve as an example of uncertainty, the viaduct of the motorway C-31 in Sant Adrià embodies the fully operational structure, while Estació de França represents the out-of-date one. The background is the city of Barcelona, a singular and old city that stands out for its conscious relationship with its landscape.