Stitching disconnected urban fabrics by transforming the existing airport and stretching the western agricultural corridor to decentralize Marrakech’s radial hierarchy.
Goodmorning everyone, we are Group 2B the so-called Graft & Stitch. The name we chose comes from the strategic approach we implemented during this whole third and last step of the project design. The idea comes from an intervention of the urban tissue that is a metaphor of the act of stitching and sewing a piece of fabric – the city is a fabric we need to stitch together and to implement. In our specific project, the in-between is on the larger scale, it’s a new common ground, a sort of patch, that reconnects a disconnected landscape
The chosen location for the project is the actual Menara Terminal, located on the southern-west side of the city walls – decision that came since Mr. Karim lecture, when we realized that the plan is to TRASNFER the AIRPORT to another potential location in the coming years. Because of this, a new urban void would be created, and that’s why this future-regeneration project was proposed.
In this initial parti diagram we can start to see the natural backbone of the project, which we will better see later in detail, and the main strategy of stitching together the different urban fabrics in the surrounding. The Menara Sew-port not only deals with the existing green infrastructure, but also aims at implementing some additional public nodes, for leisure, production and research.
As the relation with the context is most important aspect to take in consideration, the initial step was to understand the situation in the closest surrounding and how to connect with it.
The project deals with two main urban corridors, an agricultural one and a more cultural one which consitute the main spines of the whole system. From this diagram we can also see the relation with the existing urban fabrics around the project area, which are intended to be re-connected with the former airport landscape, basically our in-between urban space – even if on a large scale.
Still about the relation with the context, in this last analysis diagram we see the landscape situation in relation to underuse. We notice the presence of a natural landscape on west and in the closest north of the site location – and we also notice the general condition of underuse – from an industrial side for example with the railway station and along that main avenue – and from an ecological point of view, which is the backbone of our project.
From this last diagram we also notice how the focal point of our design project is decentralized in compare to the Medina city-core, as this decentralization is the first of our intervention approaches.
The second approach deals with Agricultural migration – which we can see from these ortoimages has been an important phenmenon during almost the last 14 years.
We notice how on the territorial, urban and local scale the phenomenon is evident.
As the main protagonist of the whole concept is the natural landscape, before getting on the job we tried to focus on two existing gardens in the city of Marrakech.
We picked the Agdal Gardens and the Menara Gardens due to the similar purpose and dimensions – and this has been crucial in order to understand the urban and social dynamics of such a space for the city of Marrakech.
Thank you Nicolò. Here we can see our masterplan which spans across the entirety of the existing airport, as well as the military base. Our scheme is characterised by two strong axes.
The horizontal axis spanning from west to east, acts as a connection between the existing agricultural land on the western hinterland, and the central urban tissues. It’s primarily characterised by agricultural activities, ranging from the local scale of allotments, to the city scale, harvesting fast and slow crops, as well as irrigation processes. In addition, along this axis we find public activities both attracting residents and tourists from central Marrakech, as well as serving the people of Menara and the hinterland.
The vertical axis on the other hand, spanning from the industrial N8 in the north down to the southern edge of the airport, acts as a connection between the disconnected fabrics of the menara. It is populated by a new residential development (an expansion of the existing fabric); recreational parks for the residents; and local scale farming, both as subsistence and allotments for small businesses. Additionally there is a pedestrian highway running alongside a botanical garden, providing a direct connection between the disconnected fabrics mentioned.
By placing programmatic icons on the masterplan, we can see the veriety of activities that populate our proposal.
Additionally to the two axes, the existing military area, in the north east of our site, will be converted into an agricultural cbd; a halth campus adjacent to the existing hospital; and a water and waste re-cycle plant.
Lasly, in the south eastern portion of our site, where the existing terminal buildings live, we propose their repurposing into headquarters for a sustainable institute, functioning in cohesion with the agricultural cbd, as well as a multifunctional space, useable for international symposiums, expositions and the like.
The icons relate to cards, which Alex will now explain.
We developed a series of cards to facilitate the reading of the masterplan. These act as programmatic devices to enable managing and designing at such a scale. Here we can see and overview of them.
In unpacking one, we see all the information it bares. A description; programmatic devices, which may belong to other categories to get a sense of which aspects are involved in each category; a key for the programmatic functions; and a timeline of it’s implementation (to see when best to play each card)
All of these cards were developed through a great deal of research into each aspect. Here we see the agricultural system, with a harvest and yield table on the left, informing our radial agricultural system on the right (items placed in proximity to agricultural cbd on yield and harvest times). We also define our 4 categories of agriculture here – city fast; city slow; local allotment; local subsistence - depending on water requirements and scalability of production.
Having a project revolving around agriculture; we through it essential to fully understand the Marrakesh’s existing water situation (in light blue on the right), and proposed water situation. Proposed solutions displayed here (on the left of the diagram in dark blue) included traditional and nontraditional methods; with a focus on affordability and impact, based on findings from a report by the World Bank. After understanding the bigger picture, we focused on our site to see how we could contribute to Marrakech’s water and waste system. (collection strategies; water treatment; natural treatment)
The methodology of the cards were used in designing and creating the sections and plans. We choose to show 3 sections and plans, at 3 very different nodes around the site, which highlight 3 different methods for dealing with the variation and complexity in our proposal.
Here, we have the area around the existing terminal building in the east with the eco wetland filter. The shades of green represent different recreational park and agricultural activities; the pink a botanical element; and the orange represents the natural desert landscape.
We can appreciate the same place in a different time of year, where rainfall may be minimal, and the different type of landscape it generates.
Here we are zoomed into the same plan and section, and you can see the unpacking and programming of the cards
Here we have a very different condition – a new residential neighborhood in the north and it’s relationship to the proposed park, with local agricultural allotments on the right. The ‘local subsistence’ agriculture takes place in the semi enclosures that the neighborhood provides
Zooming in we see programmatic devices for each instance, allowing us to understand the various actors, functions and programs which need to be involved to produce such a product.
Last we have the urban natural pedestrian highway, which connects the two Menara fabrics north and south of our proposal, and the various types of park, agriculture, botanical, natural and economic activities you might encounter along the way.
Here we are zoomed in to the same plan and section and are able to appreciate the many layers of programs that populate this area.
We found it important to also focus on the feasibility of our proposal. We therefore looked at how the harvesting cycle could generate income for the project. We synthesised this in the diagram shown here. Staring from the existing brownfield site, the land can be split into four types of lots, one is rented out to residents, another to small local businesses, another to national scale businesses and the final remains as property of the city. The rent acquired will be fed back into the system, financing maintenance and the development of the project. Focusing on the harvesting process of the city, we see how it will produce crops which can be supplied to stores and organisations in Marrakech, as well as to the sustainable institute, where they will be studied, developed and improved, to be fed back into the agricultural system. Additionally to this, waste created from the harvesting will be recycled and fed back into the system as fertiliser.
This flow chart expresses the diagrm shown on the previous slide. It provides information on the actors that are involved at each stage, as welll as, on the right hand side, showing the financial inputs and costs of the project.
To conclude, we felt that the scale of the proposal required a phasing approach for its development, which can be seen in this diagrm. The phasing begins with the development of the natural landscape and is then follwed by the gradual construction of various infrastructure. However, because of the expected 30 year span of the development, we felt it important for the proposal to be felxible enough to respond to its context over time. Therefore, the fabric that runs along the perimeter of the project, which we called stretchable fabric, doesn’t have a set function and will respond to its environment at the time of construction.
Thank you, this is the end of our presentation, but we would like to leave you with our final panels showing an overview of the project.
