A new modality of urban intervention, starting
not from isolated places from the rest of the city, where specific projects would be
developed, but from a whole area, including existing urban, architectural and social
elements; transportation and communication systems and urban, architectural and artistic
projects foreseen or already under way in the area.
It is an intensive urban cartography that
points to the area’s complexity and dynamism, the diversity of activities and the
potential of operations under way. It is from this point that new projects and
interventions would be developed.
To circumscribe the type of occupation (urban
structure, architectural typology, social and historical uses and characteristics), the
social and economic elements (migrants, homelessness, informal economy), the circuits of
transportation and circulation, the different revitalization projects and different urban
operations in implantation. Adding the urban, architectural and artistic interventions
(ephemeral or permanent) produced for the event.
A
cartography that operates by addition, turning every time the situation more dense and
saturated. Pointing to action zones and articulation intervals: a complex urbanization. A
superposition of activities and projects, mixing characteristics and scales (local,
regional and metropolitan) to form every time more complex maps. Maps composing several
plans and scales. Making possible different types of transit between the situations and
projects. Working on the relationships (spatial, functional, social, aesthetic) among
them. Exploring the multiple combinations possible, producing continuous cartographic
compositions. Each new intervention inscribes itself in those plots and allows to new
articulations. Each intervention will be another vector introduced into this every moment
more complex field.
Therefore, the interventions tend not to be
local, but to embrace wider areas, starting from territories configured by the
transportation and communication systems, the de-industrialization process and population
movements. Working at the intersection of these different devices, during the intervals
emerging from the fragmented fabric and the discontinued fluxes of the megalopolis.
Producing new articulations between the different urban situations, amplifying its
significance and urban, cultural and social impact. Intensifying perception of these
processes by the population.
Interventions in megacities cannot be
restricted to circumscribed and controlled situations, such as those that characterize
expositions. They should deal with circumstances that escape completely their domain, with
much larger scales and incalculable alternatives. They deal with infinitely more complex
systems and movements. They are interventions that aim, through tension and articulation,
to redirect urban fluxes and dynamics.
