Ambivert Identities - Barcelona 3.0

What is the distinction between border and boundary that limits the urban space? Does the human perception of a space, and the use of itself define space differently? Could various levels of collectivity be achieved by intertwining the introversion and extroversion as a designing tool for Barcelona’s new urban identity, as open-end process?

Being a part of Professor K. Scheerlinck’s research group, offered me the opportunity to explore the city of Barcelona through the framework of Streetscape Territories. The proposed site was an undefined zone of the railway of Estacio de Franca and adjacent Parc de la Ciutadella along with the zoo, which is huge barrier between the districts El Born and Poblenou. At the same time, La Ronda ring road isolates this zone from the seafront.\nThe project’s research topic was explored through specific mappings and case studies of how the introversion and extroversion could be manifested in architecture and their delimitation of the urban environment. From it, the space definitions were set up: an introverted - space with a tendency to point towards itself/inside; extroverted – a space centrifugally oriented towards the outer world, relating to context. So, does the space of both characteristics exist – ambivert space?\nThe urban strategy is to turn the zoo into a zoological park and to create a new link with the seafront by extending the park over the railways and inside Parc de la Barceloneta, bridging over La Ronda. The intention was to re-think the border by implementing traits of introversion and extroversion. The spatial qualities should redefine boundary in different scenarios and thus generating speculative and invented narratives. It should be a space where people can decide how they want to appropriate it, without any pre-attached connotation. Therefore, these diverse spaces are intentionally left non-programmed.\nFrom another perspective, it is about the building process - learning from it while constructing it. Three intervention proposals are designed in recuperated bricks and ceramics, traditional Catalan building materials. Hence, it should be perceived as a spatial experiment, an open-air laboratory. Having the undetermined timespan, it is the uncertainty that gives quality to the project. Therefore, the project has been presented through construction stages, not as a finished process. It emphasizes the ‘ongoing’ process of construction, like in Gaudi’s masterpiece Sagrada Familia.