Segovia
URBAN DESIGN RESEARCH – Masterplan
Segovia (Spain)
Year 2004
Segovia. Los Altos De Las Lastras: El Proyecto Como Metáfora Posible Para Una Nueva Conexiòn Entre Lugares.
Publisced as: M., Donisi C. Fraschini M. Malini. “El Proyecto Como Metáfora Posible Para Una Nueva Conexiòn Entre Lugares.” In Segovia. Los Altos De Las Lastras, edited by Contin A., 47-61. Milano: A&P Editing, 2004.
With: Chiara Donisi, Marta Malini
CONCEPT
This project was developed as a part of the larger research of the PhD Programme in Urban and Architectural Design commissioned by the Municipality of Segovia (ES).
Segovia is a city characterised by architectural landmarks/monuments of great value and by a unique relationship between its ground and landscape.
General city planning has been protecting the historical centre from scattered growth towards the surrounding landscape. This rare condition and its poorly defined connection to the capital, (80 km away) permitted the crystallisation of the pre-industrial settlement that is still distinguished from the surrounding landscape.
The opportunity offered by the construction of the high-speed train station, as a part of the new high capacity Spanish railway network, has framed a new scenario and introduced Segovia to a metropolitan network.
The municipality wanted to open a debate with inhabitants about possible architectural and urban thresholds between the existing fabric and the vast agricultural landscape. Over time, that wide open space has been acquiring a particular symbolic value as a natural visual background of an historical built environment. This environment is characterised by important landmarks/monuments that defined the main measures of the town (the Roman Aqueduct, the Alhambra and the Cathedral).
Starting from these assumptions, the proposal established a dialogue between infrastructural systems, landscapes and fabrics with the intention of regaining the tactile dimension of the natural backdrop as an inhabited and structuring part of the city.
The first step was the search for specific existing measures as elements that would be able to give a legible structure to the intervention and which were organically conceived and yet able to characterise different inter-facial spaces.
The reclamation of orographic features became the essential reference that articulated the linking path imagined as a set of interlaced scenes/montages between the city and the landscape. These features functioned as the elements able to inflect different typological layouts according to specific conditions.
With Chiara Donisi and Marta Malini. This work has been published as: M., Donisi C. Fraschini M. Malini. “El Proyecto Como Metáfora Posible Para Una Nueva Conexiòn Entre Lugares.” In Segovia. Los Altos De Las Lastras, edited by Contin A., 47-61. Milano: A&P Editing, 2004.
