BETWEEN LEFTOVER SPACES AND FRAGMENTS

Four projects in four different places in the central area of the city of São Paulo, each of them between blind walls and connected to subway stations. Projects were based on the adverse situations present on each occasion. Drawed through the quality of the relation with the existences around.

To attend the need, four different projects are proposed, in four places between blind walls of different categories and connected to subway stations. The present work does not intend to establish final points for the questions raised. But rather to enable new hypotheses, which may eventually qualify the urban environment in which we are inserted. The proposal wants to achive na unusual relation between public and private spaces. What is missing in the city is the type of public area that can be confused with private, which is discovered by the pedestrian in a natural way. It is extremely important for architects, not only to think about new public spaces in the city, but also to think about how to break this barrier and recover the existing ones. It was identified leftover spaces and urban gaps in both layers in the city (underground and up grund). The interventions are interposed in the place where both exist simultaneously (subway stations). Currently, the great potential that exists in these spaces is wasted. The station's projects not only fail to provide an urban improvement, but also act in the opposite way, degenerating the system. In São Paulo, subway stations represent the inflection points, since they are interpreted as the common point between the two existing layers. These are the project areas. As stated, currently, this area is reduced to a barrier. The present work understands a thickness, a space, existing in this barrier. It is a neutral zone between the two existing layers of the city. This neutral zone goes beyond the physical space. It is neutral in terms of politics, usage, full and empty. Dimensions of space that we cannot always see, but always feel. It is understood that working in this neutral zone is only possible through architecture.