Competition entry by Merten Nefs for the urbanization of the Spier Estate, a vineyard in Stellenbosch, South Africa, 2006.
The program for the masterplan included housing, hotels, a cultural centre, leisure and sports facilities, public space and landscaping. The project proposes a high-density settlement, valorizing the riverbank ecology and the existing colonial architecture on the site.
January this year I wrote about the active participation of citizens in the planning of the Gleisdreieck park in Berlin, an abandoned railway site with wild vegetation and historical pieces of engineering.
www.projetosurbanos.com.br/2007/01/22/berlin-gleisdreieck/
Last week the participation of the citizen´s organisation was suspended by the project managers of the park, Grün Berlin Gmbh. Matthias Bauer, of the Gleisdreieck planning workgroup (the citizen´s organisation), put is this way:
“Wind turbines are shut down during a storm, citizen participation is shut down when opinions become too diverse”.
It seems that after a decade of planning and struggling the project, like many others, suffers the paradox of community participation in the implementation phase. However, apart from the somewhat frustrating end – from now on the planning will be conducted only by private companies and the government – the community have managed a number of important alterations in the plans:
– the area planned for roads has been reduced
– more industrial heritage and wild vegetation will be maintained
– more open spaces will be maintained, instead of dense new planting
– the community vegetable gardens are now incorporated in the plans.
The community
www.berlin-gleisdreieck.de
The project manager
www.gruen-berlin.de
The competition, led by the city´s planning department
www.stadtentwicklung.berlin.de/aktuell/wettbewerbe/ausschreibungen/gleisdreieck/
Competition entry by Marcelo Maia Rosa, Marcio Tanaka and Merten Nefs for the 2007 Shinkenshiku Zoo competition, Tokyo. The proposed Urban Zoo Network occupies vacant city spaces, linked to the public transport system.
This turns the contact with animal life into a daily experience for all citizens, bringing it nextdoor to where people work and live. At the same time it may function as a structural element in urban revitalization and city planning.
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Paranapiacaba, vila de engenheiros e funcionários da São Paulo Railway, foi ponto estratégico na Serra do Mar para o funcionamento e construção da estrada de ferro Santos-Jundiaí, que levava passageiros do porto para o capital Paulista e café do interior para o porto. Em 1982 o sistema funicular – puxando os vagões sobre planos inclinados, usando cabos de aço e máquinas a vapor instaladas nas patamares como Paranapiacaba – foi desativado. A oficina e o funicular se transformaram em museu. A estação original foi destruida num incêndio, menos o relogio, que foi recolocado numa nova torre. A nova vocação do lugar é o turismo e o lazer. Organiza-se eventos no local, como um festival de música.
Paranapiacaba, settlement of engineers and workers of São Paulo Railway, was a strategic point in the Serra do Mar for the funcioning and construction of the Santos-Jundiaí railway, which transported passengers from the port to the capital and coffee from the hinterland to the port. In 1982 the funicular sistem – pulling the wagons on ramps by steel cables and steam engines, installed on each landing, such as Paranapiacaba – was deactivated. The maintenance shed and the funicular were transformed into museum. The original station perished in a fire, the clock was saved and put on top of a new tower. The new destiny of the place is tourism and leisure. Events are organized on the premises, such as a music festival.
01. Funicular
02. Páteo ferroviário
03. Vagão e trilhos abandonados
04. Passarela
Info:
www.abpfsp.com.br/museu_ferroviario_paranapiacaba.htm
http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paranapiacaba
www.santoandre.sp.gov.br/fip
Competition entry by Merten Nefs for Southpoint, from Ruin to Rejuvenation (January 2006, project Jury selected for exhibition at AIA New York). The project foresaw re-use of the abandoned hospital and urban wasteland of Roosevelt Island, located in the East River between Manhattan and Queens. Two wings of the ruin – currently without floors and occupied by trees and other wild vegetation – are maintained as patios of the new Arts Center. A public square is proposed to connect the Arts Center with a future theatre and ferry port. The existing inclined waste deposit is upgraded to amfitheatre for outside events.
www.aiany.org/committees/emerging/competition/Southpoint/
