The project questions the limits of atmospheric quality for the capacity of communal healing. Attempts are made through the prioritisation of plant life as a source of alternative medicines and a multi-functional unit in sustainable urbanism. The premise lies in the diversication of its functionality.

Whilst man and animal have relied on the medicial effects of plant life from the neolithic period, the full potential of using space and atmosphere as a medium has never truly been explored. Certain plants such as valerian, black elder, and dandelion have a variety of effects that are not only acquired in direct ingestion of the flower or leaves but in inhaling aroma as well. With proper treatment medicinal plants can be crushed and sieved, mixed with a neutral solution and infused through air to achieve similar results to that of ingestion.

Using water molecules present in atmosphere as a transient medium, it is possible then to compress these aroma infusions throughout space in the form of vapor. This vapor is then controlled using a thermal field of hot and cold bi-poles which in physical terms creates a convection current hence distributing it into areas of high need.

El distrito suma ya 45 interiores recuperados como jardines públicos

Corregir es de sabios, y eso es lo que lleva haciendo 26 años Barcelona con su Eixample.

La ciudad, que en su día modificó la idea inicial que tuvo Ildefons Cerdà, está volviendo a los orígenes ganando espacio público en el distrito más poblado de la capital catalana…

original version
english version

via: adn.es

1. PlanIt Valley
Location: Paredes,Portugal
Entities: LivingPlanIT
Category: Masterplanning/Urban OS
State: Under Construction
links: http://living-planit.com/planit_valley.htm
http://www.theportugalnews.com/cgi-bin/article.pl?id=1083-1

2. Smart City Santander
Entities: Cantabria University,Telefonica
Location: Santander,Spain
Category: Urban OS
State: Under Construction
links: http://www.smartsantander.eu/

3. Sociopolis
Entities: Generalitat Valenciana
Location: Valencia,Spain
State: Under Construction
Category:Sustainability,Nature/District Masterplanning
links: http://www.sociopolis.net/web/sociopolis.php

4. Emergency Respond System Madrid
Entities: City of Madrid, IBM
Location: Madrid,Spain
Category: Public Safety
State: Constructed
links: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EtH25GA_F4 h
http://www-01.ibm.com/software/success/cssdb.nsf/CS/JSTS-7ZWSPF?OpenDocument&Site=default&cty=en_us

5. Road Charging System
Entities:Swedish National Road Administration (SNRA)/Stockholm City Council
Location: Stockholm,Sweden
Category: Transportation
State: Constructed
links: http://www.ibm.com/podcasts/howitworks/040207/index.shtml

6. The CopenhagenWheel

Entities: Ministry of the Environment/MIT SENSEable City Lab
Location: Copenhague, Denmark
Descripcion: new emblem for urban mobility/ hybrid e‐bikes that also
function as mobile sensing units
Category:Transportation/Urban Mobility
State: Constructed
links: http://senseable.mit.edu/copenhagenwheel/

7. Smart City Malaga
Entities: Malaga City Hall,Endesa
Location: Malaga,Spain
Descripcion: SmartGrid/ integración óptima de fuentes de energía
renovable en la red eléctrica
Category: Energy
State: Project
links: http://www.smartcitymalaga.es/

Keywords: information, public space, density, superblock, networks, sharing, users, producer, mobility, real time data, distributed intelligence, devices, smartphones, apps, Internet of things, electric vehicles.

Superblocks in the Barcelona of Illdefons Cerdá structure a city that functions at different scales and speeds in a simultaneous way. However, several urban variables such as mobility,density,relation between built and non built space are still based on rigid asychronous systems unable to respond to continuously evolving needs.

Society now faces challenges as it has done in the past: information, sustainability, ecology…and is looking for models of coexistence based on an inclusive urban experience, intense and not segregated. There is a big demand for further occupation of the city on the one hand and to create a productive, connected and human centered city on the other.

Barcelona is now taking these challenges, and it’s looking for new models of urbanism and urbanity, based on new approaches to the city functionality. Mobility should be considered in multi-speed scale, where high-speed transportation networks open opportunities for the creation of slow speed green spaces, a debt from the city in the past. The introduction of an ortogonal network of busses in the city, will allow the creation of superblocks (avarge 500x 500 metters) that will create area were the urban speed can be lower. The streets can become parks, markets, playgorunds, or any other function oriented to a better life for the citizens.

These new public spaces should be flexible, adaptive and able to function different during time: the day-night, week-weekend, month, or year. The ecology of the public space should integrate the participation of citizens, both in mechanisms for understanding the environment by using sensor networks and actuators, and being able to develop their own management tools for these spaces, adapting its uses for according to their own needs.

We already have powerful tools to act and transform the cities, and they are many more to come. Hyperconnectivy, social networks, smartphones together with the Internet have changed the way we interact with others and with our cities. Electric vehicles will change the way we use transportation systems in urban areas, as well the new energy generation resources, which all together will open a new perspective for Barcelona and its future, as it happened 150 years ago.

How we can envision Barcelona for the next 8, 16, 32, 64 and 128 years?

Can our city model be responsive to our behavioral changes over time?