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Discovering a Place

Architecture

The 2011 Compostela Architecture Institute challenged a group of six international design students to cultivate a connection between the city of Santiago de Compostela and its new cultural complex three kilometers away. The city is experiencing a financial and cultural quagmire as a result of this 600 million euro project. Now that Peter Eisenman's Cuidad de la Cultura is more than 50% complete, city officials are concluding that the project will be more of an isolated architectural aberration than the international spectacle they had hoped for.

Discovering the two most direct, but distinctly different pedestrian links was the starting point for considering a cultural propagation between the civic dichtomoies. The aim of our interventions was to discover paths or events, blossoming from the existing pattern of the city, and qualified by various pauses, stimulating the experience of citizens and visitors.
Large-scale model of the ancient city (bottom) and Cuidad de la Cultura (top). White squares mark the proposed interventions sites. Red lines mark the newly defined pedestrian routes.
Diagram of the city with two connecting paths in red marked with interventions.
Group presentation to invited critics William JR Curtis, Juhani Palaasmaa, and the mayor, former mayor, and urban planners of Santiago de Compostela.
Intervention # 3. The main route between Santiago de Compostela and Cuidad de la Cultura has such narrow sidewalks two pedestrians cannot pass without having to step into the street. Residences on this road have terraces with parapets separating them from the sidewalk. Bench-niches are built into the parapets along the sidewalk and the interior supporting walls house fountains for the residential side. The visual screen of the terrace's trees and the sound of water help keep the residential spaces private.
Stepped terrace intervention model.
Stepped terrace view from interior.
Intervention #11. A steep descent down 116 stairs lands abruptly with the first view of Cuidad de la Cultura. This is the halfway point from the old city to the cultural complex on the more scenic of the two baths, but it is interrupted by the elevated highway. The only way to traverse the highway is through a dark, graffiti covered tunnel that reeks of urine. In order to bypass the tunnel and continue the bucolic nature of the path, a bridge connects the base of the stairs, soaring over the highway to the farmland on the other side.
Bridge intervention model.
Intervention #15. Many of the sidewalks outside of the old city are extremely narrow. The proximity to the equally narrow two lane streets make it dangerous for walkers. A monastery is shielded by a 30' high stone wall. Part of this wall is built upon granite protruding from the earth. Cutting steps into the top of the granite that protrudes between wall and the sidewalk is an opportunity to elevate pedestrians from the street and give them new perspectives of their surroundings.
Sketches and notes taken at site of stepped terrace intervention.
Sketches and notes taken at site of stepped terrace intervention.