AL-AZRAQ PROJECT
urbanism, multi purpose
open competition
>100.000 sqm
alcoy, spain
2017
competition proposal
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urbanism, multi purpose
open competition
>100.000 sqm
alcoy, spain
2017
competition proposal
The square of al-Azraq is a
scaled metaphor of the city of Alcoy: an urban vacuum without structure or
function that separates two zones of the same neighborhood, and yet a vacuum
full of potential.
In a similar way, the city is a set of neighborhoods drawn in between the ravines, saved by the numerous bridges, as insufficient lines of suture between neighborhoods that remain isolated.
The project al-Azraq: the city, the square, the building, is precisely a strategy of intervention at all levels: it is not just a matter of solving a building; it is not just a matter of solving a square, but a city plan to bring together areas of the same city separated for reasons derived by means of lack of global planning, understanding, now, the functioning of the city as a whole.
The plan, therefore, can be summarized on three fronts:
1. The city: to connect the various roads of the city through the new al-Azraq square and to create a micro-urbanism transportable at the level of the entire city.
2. The square: to create a public zone of reference not only in the adjoining neighborhoods, but also in the whole city of Alcoy, whose purpose is to enhance the various uses in time by means of a partly ‘occupied’ and partly ‘empty’ square. The square will not be the space of arrival to the building, according to the model of urban baroque axis, but will be a square with activity, according to the model of the mediterranean market squares.
3. The building: The new systems of production and working are variable and mutable, defined at all times by new technologies in constant development and by means of the economic cycles. A building that shelters spaces for these systems and modes has to pose precisely the indetermination of them as the starting point, but precisely a building, like architecture, has an inescapable physical presence. The strategy to generate this physicality while being able to adapt to unstable and changing conditions comes precisely from what is the most determined in architecture: construction, structure, space and material, combined in such a way as to facilitate its adaptation to the new productive city.
In a similar way, the city is a set of neighborhoods drawn in between the ravines, saved by the numerous bridges, as insufficient lines of suture between neighborhoods that remain isolated.
The project al-Azraq: the city, the square, the building, is precisely a strategy of intervention at all levels: it is not just a matter of solving a building; it is not just a matter of solving a square, but a city plan to bring together areas of the same city separated for reasons derived by means of lack of global planning, understanding, now, the functioning of the city as a whole.
The plan, therefore, can be summarized on three fronts:
1. The city: to connect the various roads of the city through the new al-Azraq square and to create a micro-urbanism transportable at the level of the entire city.
2. The square: to create a public zone of reference not only in the adjoining neighborhoods, but also in the whole city of Alcoy, whose purpose is to enhance the various uses in time by means of a partly ‘occupied’ and partly ‘empty’ square. The square will not be the space of arrival to the building, according to the model of urban baroque axis, but will be a square with activity, according to the model of the mediterranean market squares.
3. The building: The new systems of production and working are variable and mutable, defined at all times by new technologies in constant development and by means of the economic cycles. A building that shelters spaces for these systems and modes has to pose precisely the indetermination of them as the starting point, but precisely a building, like architecture, has an inescapable physical presence. The strategy to generate this physicality while being able to adapt to unstable and changing conditions comes precisely from what is the most determined in architecture: construction, structure, space and material, combined in such a way as to facilitate its adaptation to the new productive city.
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