Madrid (ES)

SITE / CONTEXT

Madrid, with more than three million inhabitants, has an economically and socially very diverse population. It is a complex city, in constant transformation, made up of very different urban fabrics, characteristic of the different periods in which they were built.
Madrid City Council is promoting a Strategic Neighbourhood Regeneration Plan for pre-1985 residential urban fabrics .
This Plan defines more than 400 neighbourhood units (UB) as territorial areas suitable for the diagnosis and urban regeneration project. The Action Plan is the instrument to implement the regeneration strategy in each neighbourhood unit, in order to transform them into healthy neighbourhoods. Almost half of these units are neighbourhoods built between the 1950s and 1980s to shelter the immigrant population. These peripheral residential estates are made up of large ‘superblocks’ in which different types of free-standing residential blocks have been arranged, forming an ensemble alien to the traditional notions of streets, plots, etc.
The open spaces, which barely make up a minimal road network, are characterised by the presence of mostly inter-block spaces for collective use, halfway between the public and the domestic. Poorly urbanised and lacking in accessibility, these collective spaces present biophysical conditions of opportunity compared to other more compact neighbourhood units.
The Colonia Casa de Campo is one of these neighbourhood units of the open block city. It is both the reflection and project site.
Located to the west of the municipality, it is bordered to the north by areas of high environmental quality, either consolidated (Casa de Campo) or potential (Meaques stream). Its south-eastern and south-western limits are formed by important road infrastructures that separate it from other similar units.
In its road network, several renovation works are being carried out.
It has been declared a preferential area for urban regeneration due to its socio-economic conditions of vulnerability.
In order to characterise the colony, the average parameters of this type of neighbourhood units have been used, including socio-spatial indicators. The socio-economic index integrates data on household income and the real estate value of the buildings.

QUESTIONS TO COMPETITORS

The competition proposes a reflection on the urban regeneration of Colonia Casa de Campo.
The aim is to produce an Action Plan, a comprehensive proposal for urban regeneration that will include: a qualitative diagnosis, the design of a participatory process and a proposal for intervention in the open spaces. Its replicability to other similar neighbourhoods will be assessed.
How should this Action Plan be conceived to be a tool for urban regeneration?
How should this regeneration be oriented to transform the neighbourhood into a healthy one?
The projects on open spaces must improve their conditions of accessibility, safety, sustainability and coexistence. It is a challenge to rethink open spaces as catalysts for transformation towards a healthy neighbourhood. This proposal begins in the municipal collective spaces, which are immediately available, halfway between public and domestic, but can be extended to other open spaces and even built-up spaces.
What is the role of these collective spaces in the urban regeneration of the neighbourhood? How can these spaces improve sustainability and health?
How could they be managed by involving citizens?