Assignment 03A: Comunidad Verde: Updated
Project Definition
A challenge of the urban environment in Barcelona is a lack of infrastructure to efficiently manage water when it is most scarce and abundant. New green infrastructure surrounding the management of water resources could be used to facilitate resident engagement and create social cohesion in the face of gentrification. Low-income communities and low-income members of all communities in Barcelona are those most affected by a scarcity of resources and displacement due to gentrification. This project is socially important because it strengthens intra-community relationships and connections to the natural world. Ecologically, this project increases the resiliency of water infrastructure in the face of accelerating extremes caused by climate change.
Literature Review
1. Reading: Towards a Self-Sufficient Habitat, by Vicente Gaullart
Quote:
“The application of these structures, the construction of the physical world, promote the development of self-organized structures designed to self-sufficiency, able to create and improve quality of life, and consume fewer resources” (Guallart).
Summary:
Vicente Guallart’s article “Towards a self-sufficient habitat” asserts that new architecture and urban design should distribute resources, modes of production, and modes of consumption to create self-sufficiency at multiple urban scales. In our current society, these things are not equally distributed. Guallart describes a well-distributed model as superior to a non-distributed system because it will consume fewer resources while improving the “quality of life” of the people. Many global environmental issues, such as climate change, mass extinction, and resource degradation, are caused by human overconsumption. The consumption of fewer resources as the result of the implementation of a distributed system therefore has obvious positive environmental impacts.
Discussion:
The proposal for increasing vegetation in both public and private spaces on Barcelona’s streets follow’s Guayart’s recommendation for creating a distributed model. The implementation of vegetation on privately owned walls, terraces, and windowsills in Barcelona would require distributed accion and investment from property owners and residents throughout the city. The positive impacts of such an implementation (cleaner air, a more beautiful city, etc.) would be similarly distributed. This idea of distribution will also be achieved through the selection of a location lacking public services and green space for the implementation of this urban design intervention.
2. Reading: Not Unlike Life Itself: Landscape Strategy Now by James Corner
Quote:
“Now, not wanting to return to hierarchical societies and wanting instead to more fully, effectively, innovatively engage urban public life in the realization of complex projects, how exactly might one act professionally?”
Summary:
In this quotation, Corner describes the underlying philosophy of a participatory design process in which community members and stakeholder actively participate in take part in the decision making. Corner implies that this design process is desirable because it counteracts hierarchical power dynamics that can be created when a designer imposes change on a community without their consent, input, or engagement.
Discussion:
In this quotation, Corner presents a strategy that can be used to counteract societal inequalities in the design process. This is directly applicable to the goal of reducing social divisions and inequalities which is a key part of this project. The strategy presented in this project of creating public spaces in gardens where community members can directly take ownership and control allows those community members to take ownership over the design process and the physical space in the city. Inherent in this project proposal, and in Corner’s writing, is the idea that interventions on the part of the designer leave space for the decisions of community members and users of the space. By doing so, this design aims to follow Corner’s philosophy of remaining open to growth and change over time.
3. Reading: Urban Ecological Interaction: Air, Water, Light and New Transit at the Human Scale of Barcelona’s Superilles by Philip Speranza
Quote:
“Water qualities were studied to understand the relationship between water use in a street and Superilla area and the opportunity to 1) manage water in various rain events using qualities across streets and 2) provide an everyday urban design experience that allows people to understand these natural and urban phenomena.”
Summary:
This quotation describes the goals of a sub-study on water, part of a larger study on urban ecological phenomena undertaken to create a tool to facilitate the inclusion of ecological information into urban design decisions. The goals of this sub-study include not only the efficient management of water in an urban setting, but also public education.
Discussion:
Speranza’s study described above explored both physical and educational potential of data collected. Similarly, this urban design project will consider both physical and educational implications of design decisions. Design decisions, especially those surrounding water, will be made to facilitate positive environmental impacts. The environmental implications of the project will have a secondary function as a subject of education and pride for the community. This capacity for education will facilitate interaction both between the community and the urban design project, and between community members. In such a way, this project strives to become a gathering point for the community and counter forces of gentrification through social cohesion.
Indicators
