Considering Costa Rica's history, its urban system and the perception of the inhabitants of the Greater Metropolitan Area (GAM), we propose a new layout for this largest urban territory within the country.
2.2 million people live on more than 1779km2; the large majority of this low density urban population prefers a life in suburbia at the edges of the Central Valley which houses the GAM, resulting in an exodus from the historic urban centers. El Carmen, one of the 4 central districts of San Jose and Costa Rica’s urban cultural genesis today has a population of just 22 inhabitants per hectare.
In a digitalized toolbox scenario, we illustrate the potential of designing the GAM as a high performance polycentric network system (PNS) dotted with a series of diverse and densified urban service nodes as suggested by the governmental urban planning program PRUGAM.
Each of those nodes is equipped with a mix-use program to create a 24h city for work and living; an exemplary Centro Compacto Multifuncional (CCM) was designed for El Carmen (C.C.M.E.C.). Through a series of heterotopic building typologies that stimulate a sustainable urban growth, different types and scales of investment could reanimate and repopulate the downtown area through the applied urban acupuncture.
The different urban nodes will be connected through a highly efficient public transport system and a network of alternative circulation corridors for bicycles and pedestrians that follow the green river arteries and parts of the abandoned train system. Today, only 6% of the cities' surface is protected green; we propose to raise this number to almost 25% within the urban target zone and to connect it to the great nature surround composed of volcanoes, tropical forests and lakes; the infrastructural proposal is called Trama Verde.
One of our primary goals is to reconstitute and strengthen the environmental quality of the central districts and to create an example for the GAM at large. Envisioned as a secure place to work, live, shop and relax, the four central districts could provide the diverse economical strength as seen in its heydays.
The densified urban fragments could serve as a successful prototype for the symbiosis of the green & grey built environment, enabling people to live and work in harmony with their natural surrounding in a country that is now struggling with its urban identity. The urban dweller in Costa Rica is said to think no further than the threshold of the own private domain. We propose to put a new emphasis on social interaction and urban culture. We intend to create a powerful image of a new civic space, to challenge the citizens to take action and to break the boundaries of the individual physical and mental gated communities or other capsular spaces. We propose a new form of public and private partnership and demand from the citizens to take action and to reclaim their urban pubic environment.
Don't ask what your city can do for you; ask what you can do for your city.
Credit
A Company (Oliver Schütte, Marije van Lidth de Jeude, Ronald Fonseca, and Jean Paul Garnier).
Gran Área Metropolitana, Costa Rica, 2007-2008.