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structure, while Estació de França represents the out-of-date one.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.
