Inhabiting the change. From the city to the agora, a new model of city

The masterplan project follows the guidelines of the Urban Environmental Plan and the focus of the Buenos Aires and The River Program, enhancing and enriching the integration of the city with the river; highlighting the generation of a series of differentiated and quality public spaces that allow people to link with the coast and, at the same time, generate a new dynamic urban center with unique characteristics in the city.

The project presented by the architecture and landscape studio proposed an unprecedented situation in the city, that it reached the front of the river; proposing only a 10% for the transit network, and 55% of the total area to green public space.

The brief requests that the destination of the area be at least 65 public. The temptation, then, to maximize “the park experience” of that 65 or even increase it was great. However, we understand that falling into this temptation would have been a mistake.

The immediate environment has a series of public spaces in “large park” format a few minutes walk away: the Parque Distrito Joven (<1 minute); Manuel Belgrano Park (3 mins); the Bosques de Palermo (12 mins) and the Memory Park (16 mins). This shows, clearly, that the area does not need another “large park” but rather energize and enhance the area with a varied and extended urban fabric that hosts a powerful mixed program putting citizen as the center of the public life of the project.

THE CITY AND THE RIVER, A UNIQUE OPPORTUNITY

In connection with the above, the area of the contest presents a unique possibility: that is to have an inhabitable urban area on the river front. Nowhere else on the coast of the City of Buenos Aires happens this – not even in Puerto Madero which has, between the plot and the river, the Ecological Reserve.

The riverfront already has a significant number of parks and infrastructures and yet, as we mentioned above, there is no direct and explicit contact between plot and river. It is for both reasons that we understand that the ground at hand is an area of opportunity in which it is necessary to load the area from mixed programs but also to do so extensively and extendedly.

This strategy of occupation allows, leaving a 65 of public space, to colonize the area with programs and thus ensure a rich and varied life experience in which the experience of the public is central enhancing a use 24/7 which organically results in greater citizen security.

THE PLOT AND THE PLOT DIVISION, EQUAL BUT DIFFERENT

The orthogonal and regular plot results in the square block that traces its origin to the Thistle and Decumano Romano and, with variants, is the basis of the plot of the City of Buenos Aires. The block, thus defined, is surrounded by four streets that allow access to the plots located on each of its edges.

The blocks of Parque Salguero, on the other hand, each have a single plot. This strategy allows to implement a new typology of urban cell in which the citizen is the center of urban life and no longer a mere pedestrian, displacing the car to a secondary place.

Following the logic of the success stories, both the Barcelona Supermanzanas and the Toyota Woven City, the apples/plots are part of an urban cell whose base module is 3×3, the central unit being a public space. Unlike in both models where, on the outdoor streets is accessed with the car, in the model that we propose for The Salguero Park only two streets are used by cars and sanitary services. This is achieved by joining two of the blocks into a larger management unit which produces a more complex public space and content.

FROM THE VEHICULAR STREET MODEL TO THE MODEL OF PARKS TO MAKE CITIZENSHIP

Salguero Park proposes a radical change in the logic of the city. Think of the disjunctive automobile vs. pedestrian is still having as a center the car. On the contrary, we believe that what should be strengthened is the meeting place, to recover the idea of public space in all its instances; that is why a system of connections is proposed on the one hand that allow you to circulate from one side to the other and also a series of differentiated and qualified spaces.

For the connection system, three sub-systems are proposed to be repeated in the proposed urban cells:

Native Trail Park
Citizenship Park
Transport System

For the system of differentiated and qualified public spaces, the following sub-systems are proposed:

Square System
River Walk (sirga)
Active Park
Halo Park

Transport System

The vehicular streets are those located on the sides of the urban cell, perpendicular to the river, and guarantee the arrival to each plot with the car, whether public or private. It is also on these streets where the waste is collected and the various urban services that require the car are provided.

It is also, in this system that is the network of fast cycleways and public parking spaces, thus completing the transport system.

Native Trail Park

The project is based on an overlay of natural corridors, designed with local native vegetation and built with simple, austere and contextual materials with its environment. The plant coating of this new ecological urban structure, absorbs dust and polluting particles suspended in the air, reduces the noise pollution that surrounds it, regulates the humidity level of the environment, minimizing the island of heat generated by inert constructions and increases urban comfort.

In this way it balances the water cycle, reduces the energy consumption of private buildings, generates greater biodiversity of the species, generates ecological connectivity and hosts more native flora and fauna. Many native species used in the project, are natural attractors that will host species that will arrive spontaneously and live and reproduce taking this new space of the city as its own, such as birds, and butterflies outside this part of the city. This naturalized system also allows to supply the distribution of all urban services infrastructure under natural land, drastically reducing the costs associated with the repair of them.

Citizenship Park

Similarly and perpendicular to this naturalized continuous gallery, there is the system of horizontal connections where the priority is the citizen, and no longer the pedestrian in opposition to the car. The Park has stormwater receptor cells containing native grass species on a human scale and native tree species on an urban scale.

Minimizing the heat island generated by inert constructions and giving life to the different species of birds that nested in their branches. The use of expired vegetation will also allow to sift the entrance or protection of the sun at different times of the year, maximizing comfort inside the buildings.

The screeds shall be of permeable materials favoring the control of rainwater.

Square System

Both the squares as the Halo Park and the Active Park were thought of as “exotic vegetation stamps” attached to the new native urban space.

This juxtaposition between the native and the exotic controlled, will allow to generate a very wide range of colors, textures and sizes maximizing the biodiversity of the species and increasing the urban social aesthetics.

Each square is loaded with an interactive program with users that gives identity to your environment always focusing this semantic dialectic between the natural native of the environment, with the exotic natural of the squares, all of them even trimmed and raised to 0.15 m high with respect to its surroundings having a frame of reference where the native begins and where the exotic begins. Thus, the existence of the Children’s Games Square, The Plaza del Agora, L to Plaza del Sol, Plaza del Encuentro, Plaza de la Welcome and Plaza de los Vientos.

River Walk (Sirga Way)

From the study and understanding about the behavior of the coast of the Buenos Aires Delta, an entirely natural intervention is proposed for the control of water erosion and the constant waves of the river over the territory. (the planting of totoras and lilies is proposed)

It is proposed to use native or easily growing species adapted to the environment in order to recreate a natural landscape more appropriate for native fauna. (willow, ceibo, river alder, coronillo and spinel, on which grow epiphytes such as air carnations and old beards).

Active Park

Three strong programmes are proposed on the active park:

Modern and inclusive playground to avoid all kinds of accidents. It includes rubber-absorbing soils and is devoid of any tree species as required by the CABA square code.

Rosedal designed for older adults, composed of different rosacea species with bold aromas and colors, surrounded by poplars (Populus nigra italica) to control wind and sunlight, with ramps and roads accessible to all people eliminating any urban architectural barriers.

Sports sector, for young people equipped with a football court, 6 tennis football courts and a large space to run and perform all kinds of outdoor activities.

Halo Park

The Halo Park will be the only space in the City of Buenos Aires in which 5 particular situations: the riverfront recova, is a 405 ml walk, semi-covered in front of the possibility of seeing the horizon of the Río de la Plata Halo Park a large lawn of 22,178 m2, with a circular built ride to skate run and play. The possibility of playing with the wind up barrels, approaching the river and being able to experience its native flora and fauna, being able to rent some boats and stroll through the water feeling the immensity of the Río de la Plata and the protection that being rowing inside the Halo gives me, the Paseo del Halo inside the river as a public fishermen’s pier to enjoy with the family and see the harbor dock. Halo Park is the heart that physically unites the Río de la Plata with the City of Buenos Aires.

AN IDEA OF POSSIBLE GROWTH

We understand that once this project was completed it would be a good opportunity to complete the long-awaited and deserved desire of the City of Buenos Aires to reach the river.

It is for this reason that having carried out a detailed analysis of the immediate environment is that we leave as a suggestion a possible future growth in the lands that today have tax deposits; the Office deposit Ministry of Social Development Nation and the field of the National Directorate of Health Emergencies.

These actions would connect the Parque Salguero neighborhood, with Palermo Chico, Barrio 31 and the Parque en Altura, mixing the social and economic fabric, making a city more powerful, safer and more diverse.

INDICATORS

An innovative proposal for the organization of private space allows for a significant improvement in project indicators

35 % Private Space | 65 % Public Space

10.4 % Intended for the vehicle network | 53.3 % Green Surfaces