Y-GSA | Workshop II (Practice)

2008
Outline

Objective

This workshop is related to Y-GSA Workshop 1 (2008), "Multi Ramblas YOKOHAMA;" its participants were Professor Luis Falcon and students of the Intelligent Coast laboratory at Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya (UPC), Ms. Akiko Okabe, a researcher of Barcelona, and students of the Okabe Laboratory at Chiba University.

Site: The Ramblas, Barcelona

Field work will be carried out in a foreign city, and issues of the contemporary city will be considered from a global perspective.

Research on tourism in the Mediterranean region and Barcelona, which Intelligent Coast proposes as the theme, is relevant to the issues Yokohama is currently confronting. Examining through the workshop, from a political, economic, cultural and environmental perspective, issues that a city must consider if it is to continue to develop is important for designing cities in Japan.

Future urban design in Yokohama will be studied through the urban design of Barcelona.

The various cultural projects in Barcelona can be divided into three categories: creative urban development, continually organized creative events, and a creative industry with creators of an international level of excellence. These coincide with the urban strategy currently being adopted by Yokohama: Creative City Yokohama. There is a need to study Barcelona's urban strategy which involves, as a general rule, nurturing a relationship between cultural policy and other policies, and which has produced, through the introduction of cultural functions, a fourfold rise in the number of tourists in the last 15 years.

Analysis and comparison of two similar cities--Yokohama and Barcelona--and a discussion of the future of their respective urban strategies have led to a deeper understanding of Yokohama's "Creative City Concept." Following that with a studio problem could be quite effective for the development of an urban tourism strategy. We have been able to get a fresh perspective on the future image of Yokohama through the two related workshops at Y-GSA.

Concept

Barcelona is a highly distinctive city with diverse cultural assets, buildings, culture and artists. It is immortalized in books, films and paintings, but it is also undergoing continual transformation. Public spaces are the basis for city planning and urban design policies in Barcelona. Diverse events in those spaces provide material for this city-as-theater and attract both artists and tourists. Today, the time has come for Barcelona to renew its tourism strategy if it is to remain at the leading edge of the information society, to promote further productive and cultural activities and to attract new talents and thinkers.

This workshop project began when Barcelona commissioned Intelligent Coast to reconsider the role and identity of the Ramblas, one of the most important tourist areas in the city. The laboratory was asked to reexamine the role of the Ramblas in the urban structure and the tourism strategy of the entire city--i.e. to discover what made it attractive and to investigate new directions it might take that might help reorganize the city.

* Consider from the flow of tourists and residents what can be done to better integrate the Ramblas into the network of existing public spaces in Barcelona.

* How is the role of the Ramblas for local residents to be reconciled with its role as a place of tourism and commerce?

* How is the Espagne Avenue area to be redesigned as a new center for the development of music and culture while taking advantage of its role as a node of urban transportation and its location on the waterfront?

Workshop process

In the workshop, the process of analysis and study and preparation of proposals was divided into stages. The results of the workshop, together with other research undertaken by Intelligent Coast with other universities throughout the world, were presented in an exhibition: Tourism: Spaces of Fiction from the Center of the Museum of Design of Barcelona (CMDB).

Outline

Theme: Multi Ramblas

Period: September 18 (Thurs) ~ 26 (Fri), 2008

Center of activity: NAU IVANOW (Barcelona, Spain)

Content:

* Field work in Barcelona, research into harbor areas of major cities in the world

* Research into the Ramblas, the Rambla in Barcelona

* Development of proposal for a place that can be a center for nurturing music and culture in the harbor district of Barcelona

* Design exercise (preparation of drawings, sketches and models by groups), esquisse.

* Review concerning planning, design and presentation by supervising teachers.

* Presentation (intermediate presentation; final review)

* Lecture by lecturer

Supervising teachers:

Luis Falcon (professor, Intelligent Coast, Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya (UPC)

Koh Kitayama, Yoshihiko Iida (professors, Y-GSA)

Miko Tai (architect, Architect Cafe)

Teppei Fujiwara (architect, Kengo Kuma & Associates)

Akiko Okabe (assistant professor, Department of Engineering, Chiba University)

Lecturers:

Manuel Bailo (director, ADD+ARQUITECTURA)

Manuel Gausa Navarro (professor, Intelligent Coast)

Guest critic:

Tomoko Sakamoto (editor, Actar Publishers)

Makoto Fukuda (director, MaFu Design Office)

Anna Pla Catalá （professor, Instituto de Empresa Business School）

José Luis Echeverría Manau （professor, La Salle University）

Josep Bohigas （director, BOPBAA）

Juan Alfonso Zapata Pérez （professor, Intelligent Coast）

Silvia Banchini （professor, Intelligent Coast）

Participants:

Shiro Kino, Kazuhiro Sobue, Yohei Sugiura, Mami Takahashi, Yumiko Tokuno, Topa Rita, Takuma Tsuji, Yuri Niida, Akari Yokokawa

(nine members from Y-GSA)

Hitomi Hokama, Angel Rafael Martinez Mora, Yuta Uchiyama

(three members from Akiko Okabe Laboratory, Chiba University)

Alessandro Bartoli、Matteo Lecis Cocco-Ortu、Alicinette Cury、Murilo Folchetti、Grazia Luchesu、Oliver Olivo Batista、Luis Alejandro Cuesta Perusquía

(seven members from UPC)

Organizers:

Y-GSA

Intelligent Coast, Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya

Planners:

Mariko Terada (Y-GSA studio manager)

Luis Falcon (professor, Intelligent Coast)

Collaborators:

Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya (UPC)

Tomoko Sakamoto (editor, Actar Publishers)

Makoto Fukuda (director, MaFu Design Office)

Managers:

Mariko Terada, Mikiko Tabata (Y-GSA studio assistant)

2008 Outline

Objective

Outline

2008
Outline