ablarc said:
"Our solution was multi-pronged but basically consisted of making the old walled city more accessible w/o destroying the character of the city, along with intergrating more of those services desired by the popluce into the old city."
Interesting; what exactly did you do to make it more accessible?
Frist, we offerd several possible scenarios which "reintergration" could take place, some were more intrusive than others, the idea was that we could offer a level of self determination for the locals.
1- we went back to history, Segovia had 6 gates at one time today 3 are open to traffic, on was closed off completely, we open up all, 4 vehicular 2 pedestrain, but more important than opening those gates was to provide connectors to the feeder roads below, thus increasing the permiability of the existing morhpology.
2- removed some 19th century (it was architecturally unimpresive) housing to open up access to the city on both sides of the aquaduct. The historic gate side was already open, the other side was a shear drop to a dead space below.
3. provided designs schemes for a vertical lift. 3 different systems one completely concealed in the hill, another that climbed the hill, a third that intergrated a tower and a bridge on axis w/ on of the lesser existing gates (thereby turning it into a major entrance)
4. Entirely shutting the old city down to traffic, intergrating a fixed wheeled trolly system instead, which would work much bettter on the wonky mideval streets. This had the added advantage of connecting to the new Ave station (arriving in 2007)
5. Open up the wall. Although the wall is intact, it was built upon in the late 19th century and early 20th, alot of what was built was pretty nice stuff too, you were able to follow the wall for a while but then had to exit to a side street and pick it up later.. so after an exhustive survey of the "wall buildings" we developed a syetem by which tenants at "wall level" could be bought out, or partially bought out..and then demolish and "open up" a 12' wide corridor that would complete the "wall loop" thus allowing for increased circulation, conectivity and views, while maintaining the 19th century add-ons and providing new mixed use, as we determined that the resulting reconditioned 19th space would make great adaptive reuse for retail in an established residentail district.
The scenarios were set up to be intergrated w/ each other to varying degrees or to stand on there own. There were also, of course, other specifics dealing w/ economics, implementation, the Spanish legal system yada, yada, yada...