Vision for the lake: the arrival point of the Metropolitan Almendares Park
Risalire il fiume
The Almendares River as a cultural and ecological infrastructure for Havana
The transformation starts from the residual vacuums and from the recovery of the disused areas, that are barriers trasformed in polarities able to open the river to the city.
The Rio Almendares represents a vulnerable margin characterized by natural and urban landscapes increasingly threatened by degradation and abandonment.
These border areas could be a dynamic laboratory for the experimentation of creative spaces able to encourage the social practices typical of the Cuban context.
The project proposes the redevelopment of the river banks and the creation of three urban parks to resolve the discontinuities of the existing metropolitan green network. The river mouth is the most compact and central context: it represents the starting point for a regeneration that cares about ecology and sustainability.
The green public spaces designed are disegned in the metropolitan area to compose a fundamental structure for the growing city.
2017/2018
The strategy
The project involves the composition of the metropolitan territorial macro-system gradually over time, starting from each of the urban realities identified as primary critical issues in the system. For this reason it is expected that all the local contexts and the organizations involved collaborate in order to achieve a common objective: the development of a green and blue infrastructure on the metropolitan scale.
The redevelopment of the riverfront would represent an investment capable of generating extremely positive effects for the community: the creation of a network of public transport and cycle-pedestrian paths along the river would improve accessibility to urban polarities and to ensure a better connection between the periphery and the center.
From the ecological point of view, the reforestation and the actions connected to the decontamination of this important natural context, allow the improvement of the air conditions and a more conscious management of the water of the river, which is an essential resource for the city (the Rio Almendares meets 47% of the Havana's water needs).
In addition, the connection of existing landscapes or designed polaritiescould generate a naturalistic path from the mouth of the river to the lake able to develop a more sustainable form of tourism, attractive not only to foreigners but to the cubans too that are constantly in search of healthier and more livable spaces.
In addition, the connection of existing landscapes or designed polaritiescould generate a naturalistic path from the mouth of the river to the lake able to develop a more sustainable form of tourism, attractive not only to foreigners but to the cubans too that are constantly in search of healthier and more livable spaces.
A vision through time
To ensure greater control of the transformation process and a slow reappropriation of the river environment by the community, the redevelopment of the entire river network is divided into three main phases:
The Park of Arts
Represents the starting point for the trasformation of the riverfront in a green-blue infrastructure able to promote an environmental awareness and a different relationship between the city and the river, that has been stigmatized for too long.
The Park of Arts, being the most central area of the river system, will constitute the real gateway to the new designed network of the Rio Almendares.
The municipalities of Miramar and Carmelo, especially in recent decades, have been characterized by an exponential increase in spaces related to the development of art and culture. Respecting this vocation, also to ensure the attraction that the area can exercise on the center of Havana, it is expected to re-functionalize the disused industrial area in a space for the enhancement of various arts that most characterize the Cuban context (music, art, cinema and dance).
Urban Strategy | The month of the River
Masterplan
To ensure the accessibility along this part of the river and to enhance the urban porosity of the fabrics characterized by a reticular plot of Vedado district, it is planned to open the est bank, actually closed by military and industrial areas, and to reorganize the west bank in order to ensure continuous visual contact between the banks.
The abandoned productive area is designed using the gardens and the green areas as a structure: the d-sealing technique and the new parks for the community define the accesses and enhance the educational-social value of nature. Then, the gardens become the main structural component of the project: not only an ornamental element, which provides shade and embellishes the urban district, but a functional component .
The project provides for the re-functionalization of the buildings in the Chullima area which have are in a good state of maintenance. In addition to this, the criteria that led to the choice of the buildings to be transformed are connected to their position and to the visual-compositional opportunities that this entailed.
Plan of Astilleros Chullima | The Park of Arts
Section AA
View of the project
The Agriculture Park
The main critical issues of this area is the exposure to the risk of flooding.
The project is therefore connected to mitigate the risk and to design elements that can allow a more conscious management of the water resource.
The project is therefore connected to mitigate the risk and to design elements that can allow a more conscious management of the water resource.
The environmental vulnerability is used as design guide: this pole will become an exemplary intervention for the city, capable of sensitize the community to ecology and sustainability.
The agriculture parkr, which becomes the point of arrival of the proposed educational circuit, should not only represent a productive area, sporadically open to the public for guided tours: the vision is to introduce a new form of conceiving agriculture, no longer only as a productive area but as a collective space which could host attractive public functions that generate interesting opportunities for the inhabitants.
Urban strategy | The Valley
Masterplan
Section AA
The agricultural area is thought as a depressed area, where the plot of the crops is oriented so that it is able to channel the meteoric waters towards the basin. The crops are associated with other plants, in line with the principles of permaculture, in order to guarantee the stability of the ecosystem. In the northern area a covered square is proposed as a community center and market area.
To the south of the agricultural area it is proposed the creation of a flexible public park for various uses that during the intense rains can also work as a flooded basin.
In the center of this park has been placed a hill, intended as a vertical botanical park. The hill characterizes the area of the park and is an attractive landmark for the community, it is also a playful and educational element, from which it is possible to have a privileged view of the park.
Management of water inside the agriculture park
The botanical hill
The Wetland Park
Recovering the elements that in the course of history have defined the image of this fluvial environment, it is planned to open the river to the community, transforming it from barrier into a square for the inhabitants of this peripheral context, that is a connector between two Metropolitan parks.
Moreover, considering the transformations that this wet landscape, once rich and flourishing, has suffered because of the infrastructures built by man, such as the dike Ejercito Rebelde, this project aims to enhance the landscape with a constructed landscape that can also phyto-purify the river.
Urban Strategy | The wet landscape
Masterplan
The urban center is located in a strategic position at the metropolitan level: it is in fact included between two very attractive parks, and is also crossed by the railway and a main axis, so it is easily accessible.
Therefore, this fluvial context represents the opportunity to solve one of the main ecological discontinuity points and the to recover a historical center whose birth is linked to the presence of the river itself.
Therefore, this fluvial context represents the opportunity to solve one of the main ecological discontinuity points and the to recover a historical center whose birth is linked to the presence of the river itself.
Section AA Section BB Section CC
Plan of the River Park
The River Park
All the elements that make up this new urban polarity are in visual communication with each other.
The three squares are platforms where you can enjoy a privileged relationship with water and constitute landmarks, playful elements "to be reached", which stimulate the citizen to relate to the river. Each square also presents some sessions in order to promote both fishing or the contemplation of the landscape.
The three squares are platforms where you can enjoy a privileged relationship with water and constitute landmarks, playful elements "to be reached", which stimulate the citizen to relate to the river. Each square also presents some sessions in order to promote both fishing or the contemplation of the landscape.
View of the constructed wetland
The Metropolitan System of the Almendares River Park
In order to guarantee the connection between the urban centers and the Rio Almendares system, the reorganization of the landscape is foreseen in 3 main categories, each of which exerts its influence on a specific scale.
The neighborhood gardens have an influence on the tissues immediately near, the agricultural areas are connectors between different districts, even belonging to different municipalities, and the ecological forest represents the green network that connects the various municipalities of the metropolitan area along the river, from the outskirts to the center of Havana.
The neighborhood gardens have an influence on the tissues immediately near, the agricultural areas are connectors between different districts, even belonging to different municipalities, and the ecological forest represents the green network that connects the various municipalities of the metropolitan area along the river, from the outskirts to the center of Havana.
Furthermore, it is planned to strengthen the forest system near the main infrastructures: the filter woods will play an essential ecological role in the territory even if they do not represent green areas that can be used as public space.
Finally, the reconversion of industrial areas with historical-cultural value or with particular potential is envisaged. These areas, transformed into recreational or cultural centers, will constitute micro-attractors among the main parks that make up the green system of the Rio Almendares.
RIVERSCAPE!
It is expected that the path along the river is dotted with installations that could offer to the users various ways to perceive or interact with the landscape, both woodland and river.
The possibility to meet different types of solutions to cross the river or the forest is a guarantee that this network could be actually chosen instead of the bus, too slow and too crowded.
These are devices that allow you to interact with water and do not require large investments because they can be built using materials already present in the context, such as bamboo, which infests the river and which is one of the main plants to be used in reforestation, avoiding the hydrogeological risk. Moreover, it is a material already widely used by the communities living near the river
Bridges on the water level
Raised paths
Continuous paths: from the forest to the river
Platforms on water
Terracing
Vision for the river park in front of the CUJAE University
Vision for the exiting Husillo Park
