Roman Circus

Toledo´s Roman Circus is abandoned. A concrete infrastructure at Roman scale is added. It is a large viaduct that allows direct access to the city providing parking spots for the cars that fill the Circus surroundings. An arboretum is added along the old footprint of it. The action is not to recreate the past, a new contemporary entrance to Toledo is created.

The road that cross by the circus is deleted and the existing vegetation is completed. Nearly 2000 trees fill the interior of the Circus, which has 420 meters by 110 meters. An arboretum becomes massive, leaving the old Roman “Spina” footprint free.\nOn the other hand, an element of access to the city is proposed, bypassing a ring road and serving as a parking for cars that occupy the Circus surroundings.\nIt is a viaduct 500 m length which connects the contemporary city with the top of the Historic District. It adapts to the unevenness of the terrain. and takes advantage of the escalator’s existing infrastructure.\nAt 200 m, surpassing the Circus, and once it has the necessary height, the parking appears progressively. This is distributed in 10 plants and hosts up to 1000 vehicles.\nThe cars circulate along the side ramps, which gives access to the central parking slabs. Pedestrians circulate vertically through the elevators and the upper ramp. Historic District access is only pedestrian, separated by a few centimeters from a mass concrete pier embedded in the terrain.\nThe Viaduct is built with prefabricated prestressed concrete parts, with metal joints mounted on site, mostly joints.\nThe main beams work like the diagonals of a Warren beam, parallel but displaced. Their union is more obtuse than usual, so they will tend to open up.\nThe external ramp beams, are supported by these diagonals, holding them and increasing their own tensile stress. In this way they lighten their edge by compression request. Parking platforms unites both sides of the viaduct. These slabs are supported by the main beams or the elevator walls. They are two slanted walls embedded in the slabs and in the main diagonals. In addition to the support and transit of passers-by, they serve as a step for parking facilities and lighting.\nThis project pretends to recover the trace of the Roman Circus without recreating its past appearance and putting it into value with an element, at the scale of Roman infrastructures, which is also functional, and recovers the sprawling parking area for the citizens. A new contemporary entrance to an historic city.