Europan 2003

The Concept

Can we consider that the landscaping process is able to renew the acute
questions of the urban project especialy when dealing with the suburban
context ?
According to this central question applied to this particular site, our
proposal is supported by three conceptual ideas :

 the frame
 the great landscape.
 the liberation of the groundv

The frame :

Established facts : The actual territory is surrounded by a diffused
suburban tissue, separated from the young historical center by the
railway barrier.
This context is defined by its lack of cohesion and urban qualities.
Process : Our conquest of this huge virgin territory relies upon a virtuel
orthogonal frame extending the one of the city center.
Although this process seems rigorous, it opens large possibilities for
flexible adaptation to specific situations.
Proposal : The squares of 15x15 m metamorphose the nature and
change the regulation of the concerned site. They allow diverse programs
and built or unbuilt typologies. The frame carries the stake of the
unification of this pescara’s suburban area, as it has happened before at
the birth of the city.

The great landscape :

Established facts : the existence of infrastructures (highways, railways),
transports (cars, train, plane, boat) and of remarkable landscaping
elements (mountains, Pescara river, the Adriatic sea) brings to this site
the great landscape space-time refernece.
The spreading out suburbs conduct to the loose of legibility of these
landscapes.

Process : the reflexion on suburbain spaces has to integrate nowadays
the dimension of great landscapes.
Our proposal intends to renew the dialogue between the great scale and
urban density by revealing existing potentialities.

Proposal : We propose to create on the entire area a new referent level
folowing the curving profile of the freeway, by a strict reglementation
applicable as well to buildings, as to vegetation and public accessories.

The liberation of the ground :

Established facts : Even if the proximity of existing infrastructures
gives the site the potentialities to drain all possible flows, such heavy
works would disturb its natural balance.
Process : As we take advantage of all car transportation qualities with-
out undergoing its nuisances, our prposal.minimizes the presence of the
cars, creates a new balance with nature and measures the territory in its
specific space-time metric system.
Proposal : The carparks punctuate the site along the freeway and create
a programmatic link between up and down and the btwo banks of the
river.All of those carparks can become a heart of a new district.
Each point of the site is not further than a 7,5 minutes walk from one of
them. Thus, by preserving the green feeling of this site and according to
situations, the site reveals as well its densification capacity as the
possibilities for great open air areas.

en association avec Jakub Jakubik et Arnaud Sachet.