Abstract

The emphasis of the project is to show the different types of informal use of the Minhocão viaduct. The chosen medium is video, to be able to show the continuation of the linear object, experienced from recreational use. At certain intervals video´s show informal events that occur on top of, and underneath the highway.

Project outline development Arife + Toon

Our research topic is Minhocão. The object is a highway dividing the area into two parallel worlds. There is one world on top of the highway and one underneath, both consisting of formal and informal activities.

By day, the deck of the Minhocão is used by cars. It is a busy highway, which is very important for the traffic flow in São Paulo. 80.000 cars pass here each weekday. By night and on Sundays the Minhocão becomes a recreational space. As a formal act it is closed for motorized vehicles; as an informal act it is used for walking, running and cycling.

Under the highway is another busy road. The formal use of the street level consists of several types of businesses and public transport. In the buildings surrounding the highway are shops, some offices, hotels and housing. The space under the highway and in surrounding public spaces is informally used by homeless people and some drug addicts.

Many proposals have been made for Minhocão, examples here, here, here and here. The proposals were made for a design competition. Basically all of them make the Minhocão bigger, and have been designed with little regard for the situation underneath the highway. The informal use is either abandoned or neglected.

Our proposal aims at improving the informal conditions around Minhocão, using minimal, low profile architectural tools. We ultimately want to propose one intervention that effects the informal use both on top and underneath the highway, and connect this to the surrounding public spaces. We will try to do this by stimulating participation of the informal users in their physical environment.

We will map the activities on the highway on different times and different days, using video, photo’s, sections and maps. Eventually we want to propose a design intervention.

How it should work under the viaduct

Section of the proposal

Photos Minhocão

Sao Paulo weergeven op een grotere kaart

Informal production of space

for both of you I would like to stretch a bit more the topic of the workshop. Your projects can be very interesting and I am sure will create considerable discussion, but I would like to see more conceptualizing of the informal vs formal reality. You mention it here and there with the traffic and public space use but your argumentation would then need a different angle - let me know if you feel uncomfortable with this idea.

area plan

Minhocão + adjacent open spaces

Here you find the winning entry for the competition of Minhocão

Proposal Arife Karaosmanoglu

Project outline Arife Karaosmanoglu

Hotspots

Thesis: What are the “ HotSpots” on the Minhocão?

By hotspots is meant the ‘spots’ in an area which can be seen as important (public)space of that part of a city, neighbourhood, street etc.
My idea is to research the area around, under and on the bridge to localize the hotspots. This are mainly the areas around the bridge which can be pointed out as potential areas to analize and to revitalize. This areas can be a square, park, exit from the bridge etc.

Strategy:
I’ll visit the location on different days of the week to see what happens around. The first visit is on a holiday, on a sunday and on a regular monday afternoon. This will give a general impression of the area and the activities which take place around.

Tools:
I’ll make series of street profiles which will clearify how the density around the bridge is. Also sketches of the area, photos, films etc wil help to analize the area better. I’ll use google maps as an underlayer to create the different drawings and to show the bridge in its context.

Final product:
In the end of the two weeks of workshop I’ll have a design proposal which will be a series of drawings but also a serie of images. The proposal I’ll make will be on two different scales. The first is on a larger scale and the other one focussed on a few parts of the whole strip of the bridge (the hotspots). The final product is a booklet of the design proposal.

Project outline Toon

Project outline

Topic:

Minhocão

Thesis:

Are there ways to connect the Minhocão highway with surrounding (semi-)public spaces?

Abstract:

The Minhocão highway was opened in 1971 to find a solution for the dense traffic in São Paulo. The highway links Praça Roosevelt with Largo Padre Pericles through Barro Funda. It has been built with little regard for the surrounding spaces. Planners built the highway right over an existing road.

Today it is quite densely used during rush hours. In the surrounding area there are different kinds of use, both formal and informal. Between 21.30 and 6.30 the highway is closed, for to prevent noise and the high risk of accidents. On Sundays the highway is closed for motorized traffic and becomes a recreational space. Pedestrians and bicyclists are free to use the space. Being one of few large public spaces it is used quite often, but the space lacks sufficient facilities and is hard to enter.

The proposal aims at making the space more public by connecting it with the surrounding area. Connections will give an impulse not only to the highway as a recreational space, but also to the small public spaces around the highway. This could result in an improvement of the area.

The proposal is a reaction on the plans to demolish the highway. I think that it has a high potential and could be important as a public space, as the city becomes more dense.

Approach:

First I visited the Minhocão during the weekend, when it is used as a recreational space. I tried to see what kind of public visited the highway and how it was used. I made documentation with photographs.

On Monday I will do the same investigation to see how the space is used by cars. I want to see at what times the area is densely used and at what times there is low traffic.

I will also investigate what kinds of uses there are around the highway, looking at formal/informal aspects, as well as public/private use.

Final product:

The final product will be a design proposal to connect the highway as a public space with other public spaces on the ground floor. The design concept will be focussing on certain points of interest where I can make points of connection. I will propose basic design objects that can generate activity on particular places, stimulating developments in the whole area.

The architectural emphasis will be to make proposals that are in line with local characteristics, while also promoting the Monhocão as a comprehensive public space. A reference I have in mind are the pavilions in Parc la Villete in Paris.

Media:

For the analysis I will use sections, sketches and photographs to show the relationship between the elevated highway and the ground floor. Maybe I will use film and try to link it to digital media. I will use a large Google Earth map to show the highway in its context. The final product will be a design proposal with plans and images, in pdf-format.