Mind the Gap

MARRAS, FRANCESCO

2014-01-01

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Abstract

The expression ‘mind the gap’ refers to the act of paying attention to crossing pass from one element to another. In urban transformation and architecture project it is necessary to reflect on the concept of distance and crossing in particular in relation to the theme of the change of scale and especially from urban design to the architectural design and detailed design. Roberto Gambino talks about the concept of ‘scaling gap’, that is a multi-scale approach to urban design that can go through all the steps of the project and it tries to give control to a transformation. The method is based on a deep morphological analysis of the territory and the landscape and detections of elements and invariants inside, after establishing the invariants you are able to define a formal grid that keeps continuing at all scales of design, starting the territorial scale up to reach the scale of architectural detail. Supporting this reflection may present a set of projects that participated in the competition Europan 12 which show that the multi-scale approach can be a way to control an urban transformation. The site of Hoganas can be considered a research field of this approach that involves urban, rural and coastal morphologies, and their relationship. The project at multiple scales can be a basis to monitor and study the existing urban form and to reflect on the possibilities of future transformations going to define development scenarios and guidelines for the territories.