CUSCO SUN CITYAn experimentAl territory on the site of the AlejAndro VelAsco Astete Airport

CUSCO SUN CITYAn experimentAl territory on the site of the AlejAndro VelAsco Astete Airport

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LIVING THE PARKThe city of Cusco will be the object of a great transformation due to the decentralization of the airport and to the functional reuse of the space that it is now occupying; this transformation requires very complex evaluations related to several variables. The consequences of the choices will concern and influence not only the city of Cusco, but the entire area. The current national debate is marked by differing positions about the need and the modality of realization of the new international airport. Its location is basically still uncertain: reflecting on new uses and new spaces in substitution of those occupied at the moment by the airport can’t be separated from the debate and its consequences, from the misunderstanding of the problems, from the complexity of a transformation that will be developed in a long time. Past examples, more or less virtuous, of “urban regeneration”, could be useful in forecasting the problems that could be faced in this kind of situation. At the same time it will be possible to see how debates always occur when dealing with projects of urbanization, transformation and re collocation of urban areas.

1Cusco, aerial photo.

2Cusco, urban development:1924, 1956, 1963, 1970, 1984, 2014.

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3Cusco, natural and mineral system.

The explorations in terms of projects carried out with the Design Unit ‘Cusco Sun City’ of the Master Degree in Architecture (Construction and City) of the Politecnico di Torino (AA 2013-2014) start from these considerations. The critical issues due to the possible displacement of the airport is temporarily suspended and the attention is focused on the transformation of the existing city when the 200 hectars occupied today by the airstrip, the terminal and the adjacent spaces will be reconfigured as new spaces and uses. According to the directions of the public and professional local institutions (the Municipality, the University of Architecture, the Order of Architects, citizen associations and committees), this space will house a green area, right in the heart of the valley and the city. A considerable freedom in the operations is made possible by the flexibility of the chosen program, living the park, although in accordance with certain rules. First, the safeguard of a large not built surface used as a big open space for social activities. Second, a specific attention to environmental sustainability, in addiction to the problems linked with the complete transformation of the enormous ancient structure of the airport. The whole valley needs an ecological reconstruction that could find its focal point in this large free surface, with the creation of natural corridors along the valleys and the organization of a new system of canals that will be able to permeate the city. Third, to confer a particular attention to the production of renewable energy and to the use of insulating materials possibly produced locally, in order to reduce drastically – or totaly- waste and emissions.

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4Diller Scofidio + Renfro, The High Line, NY, 2003-2009.

5-6Lifescape. Fresh kills Parklands, Staten Island (NY), 2001.

Starting from here, this process of disposal and reclamation of the soil and of the existing facilities must be accomplished in parallel with a progressive reconstitution of the relationship between the site and the city. This must be activated through the definition of the main transport infrastructure of the canals. The approach of the project of the Alejandro Velasco Airport follows the recent disciplined tradition of the elaboration of procedural strategies, instead of drawing master plans. These choices concern basically two systems: the system of the infrastructure (natural and transport infrastructure) and the system of some special environments regulated by specific choices linked with the morphology and the program.

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INFRASTRUCTURESFirst it is absolutely necessary to focus on the intervention along the river Huatanay, that is causing many problems like pollution, floods, broken banks, landslides and overflows. Radical changes in terms of hydraulic and landscape are made possible thanks to the removal of the Airport. These interventions will be the start of a new identity of this area, as a place for people living the park. Due to the present difficulties regarding the functioning of the water system, a new complex study is required.

7River Huatanay flood.

8Water system: state of fact.

9Water system: flooding problem.

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The first problem - primarily linked with the engineering and the hydraulic - are the floods, mainly localized in the stretch of the river Huatanay that drops easterly from the area of the airport terminal. In the previous part of the river, the project provides the realization of a basin that should be able to reduce the flow during the floods. A large artificial tank will be able to confer value - also a landscape value - to the park (through its section, the control of the water, the canal discharge and flow). More downstream, the Huatanay riverbed will find a new configuration - more plastic and organic - within the boundaries of the future park, until the confluence and environmental reconnection with the torrents descending from the mountains.

10River Huatanay: state of fact.

11System of tanks of lamination.

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12Bassin de la Villette, Parigi.

13System of tanks of lamination.

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This first intervention on the river regeneration will strongly influence the transport infrastructures. The big basin, in strong relationship with the Huatanay river, is inevitably causing the interruption of the Alejandro Velasco Astete road, forcing the creation of an alternative road. Then, it is necessary the proposal of a new boulevard on the southern part of the airport runway, to serve the existing neighbourhoods and guarantee a fluid east-west mobility. This way the road network of this part of the city - which has always been more marginal and “slower” then the northern part of the city because of the presence of the airport - is recomposed. Regarding the network of the existing roads, the Via Expresa remains the main longitudinal axis connecting the city. Because the way between the park and the city will be cut, some parts of the section will be redesigned to allow the insertion of a secondary road and spaces for

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Av. 28 de Julio

Via Expressa

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vehicular and pedestrian access to the park southward and to the city northward. The proposal is to repeat along the part of the road parallel to the airport the same road section of the Avenida 28 de Julio, with four central transit lanes and two lateral service roads, each of two lanes. The target is to develop the urbanity of this infrastructure: even if the traffic has to became slower because of the approach to the city center, it has to be maintained as fluid as possible. Two new roads crossing are cutting the central area of the airport runway, recreating north-south connections. The eastern infrastructure intercepts the transverse valleys that are converging on the Huatanay valley: the result is a sort of parkway that, running along the steams coming from the mountains, crosses the city and the new park.

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17Street network: project.

Avenida 28 de Julio and New Via Expressa

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Politecnico di Torino - A.A. 2012-2013 - CDL Magistrale Architettura costruzione città Composizione architettonica Pierre-Alain Croset | Urbanistica Angelo Sampieri | Tecnologia dei materiali Simonetta Pagliolico

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Concerning the public rail mobility, the project recuperates the purposes of a previous design exploration conducted during the Design Unit ‘Cusco Linear City’ of the Master Degree in Architecture (Construction and City) of the Politecnico di Torino (AA 2012-2013). This project assumed the conversion of the railway line passing through the valley of the river Huatanay in a new metropolitan tramway line. This transformation could create a sequence of small developed areas at each station, besides activating a public transportation line, fast and efficient, for the longitudinal and transverse mobility (from the city center to the neighbourhood of the valley and across the park).

18Cusco Linear City: trasformation scenarios along the railway.

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B - GREEN CORRIDOR and EXPERIMENTAL TYPES

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C - SERVICES and RESIDENCES ALONG THE PARK

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New urbanityA - LIVING IN THE PARK

Public open space

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SPACESThree different large areas mark the sequence of spaces that will compose the new park. Three spaces that will be able to follow different transformation times in relation to their character and use and according to the investment that will be made on them. Without giving up the construction of an uniform, longitudinal connection of the ‘big metropolitan park’ as it has been decided by the program, the possibility of an evolution distributed in different times is being considered, so the different spaces are planned to able to work also partially and not only as components of a larger system. In every area a mix of functions is provided, in order to guarantee the creation of a substantial part of the city, observing the quantities required by the Office of the City Plan of Cusco. However, it has been proposed to reduce the proportion of commercial spaces and reinforce the residential function.

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20Urban design guidelines.

21A - Living in the ParkIn the west side, the airport runway goes through the regular blocks of the existing city like a sharp wedge. The surface between the monument to Libertadores, the airport terminal, the Via Expresa and the neighbourhood along the Huatanay river, defines a square; its spatial organization could be entirely rethought with the aim of rebuilding an evident relationship (even morphological, but not imitative) with the existing city. For that reason, it becomes necessary, here more then anywhere else, to define a new living principle able to organize a ‘fabric’ and support some denser forms of living. Here, where the park is ‘inhabited’ and ‘living in the park’ means living in a place strongly characterized by the presence of nature, of public spaces, of equipment for collective use and crossed by repeated traffics, mostly pedestrian. Overall, the target is to test a kind of urbanity quite untraditional: a middle point between the urbanity of the great consolidated city and the one more linked with the leisure life that takes place in the large natural park collocated on the east side. The constructions that will develop in this area, will include different kinds of uses: residence (25-35 %), commerce (10-20 %), administrative services (25-35 %), educational services (10-15 %), cultural services (5-10 %). They will be organized in strips collocated in direction north-south, and will be composed by large blocks, hybrid buildings of six-nine floors with a high density.

21Guidelines A: Living in the ParkTotal Build area = 65.400 smqTotal Floor surface = 392.400 sqm

22 B - The IslandsThe central part of the park is developed transversely relative to the airport runway and the city. It crosses the valley creating natural connections (on the transversal valleys) and vehicular connections (along the two new infrastructures of the north-south viability). Starting on the south from the Agua Buena neighbourhood, the spaces defined by this area include a section of the Huatanay river, its new artificial basin, the area of the terminal and the central part of the airport runway. It continues then over the Via Expresa, including the large commercial and productive blocks along the Avenida Perù. Regarding these blocks, it is not difficult to think about their future use and conversion to new activities, in accordance with the position that they will occupy once the transformation will be done. This large surface keeps maintaining a strong relationship with nature and with activities directed to a mixed public (city dwellers, inhabitants, tourists). For that reason, it is possible to imagine the construction of new areas organized on big attractors disposed as islands in an archipelago (simple to cross, due to the rich network of infrastructures that allows agile mobility). These islands are intended as mono functional surfaces in which the program could change according to the demands of the time (a museum, an university, a research center, but also a hospital). These macro-objects have some defined formal aspects: a constant height of maximum five meters as a continuous base that defines the ground connection of the island (occupying a surface of about ten thousands square meters), the presence of a tower (or even two) of a maximum

22Guidelines B: The IslandsTotal Build area = 62.000 smqTotal Floor surface = 180.000 sqm

23height of sixty meters, to characterize and ‘punctuate’ this large space mainly defined by horizontal volumes.

C - Equipments and residences along the ParkOn the east side of this central transversal corridor, over the transept, the park maintains a character more related to the nature and to the activities linked with it, to sports and leisure. Here, two main operations are required to start a process of renaturalization of that area of the airport runway: the redefinition of the course of the Huatany river (within the boundaries of the park) and the remodelling of part of the topography. On the eastern edge, the redesign of the hill facing the confluence of the Huatanay river with the water courses coming from the north and the design of the valley opening towards San Jeronimo and beyond, are particularly important. This way, the river and the hill are becoming two strong geographical signs of this part of the city and they contribute to the improvement of the environmental quality (the river that irrigates the park) and of the aesthetic components (the hill becomes a sort of landmark of great panoramic value and from its top it is possible to admire the whole valley and the entire extension of the park). Along the Via Expresa, in the northern part of the actual airport runway, the park needs at least three points of connection with the city, almost like three platforms through which adhere to the park. On these three points the Via Expresa changes its section allowing the ‘docking’. Along these ‘hard’ supports, mainly ‘mineral’ - that could be partially used for circulation - some equipment

23Guidelines C: Equipments and residences along the ParkTotal Build area = 26.000 smqTotal Floor surface = 130.000 sqm

and services for the park are placed. For example parking, playgrounds and sport equipments, but also small buildings (for a maximum of about 7.000-10.000 square meters built for every platform) used for sport activities, free time, education. On the opposite side, on south, the front of the park is defined by an array of residential building, served by a new urban avenue. This settlement must define the new front of the park, must guarantee permeability and repeated connections between the park, the southern city and the tramway and it must create morphological and functional links with the neighbourhood. With this target, the program provides an edification that is developed linearly along the park and the road that runs longitudinally towards east: residential buildings of eight-eleven floors (with a commercial ground floor).

CUSCO SUN CITY

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