Barcelona Superblocks
Many Slow Cities into a Smart City
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?
How new space optimization could generate opportunities for the densification of Barcelona?
Can we transform Barcelona (built and non built) into a networked city?
Can our city model be responsive to our behavioral changes over time?
