PHOENIX POBLENOU

Urban Morphology is about the built form of cities, the urban elements and the socio-cultural essences embedded in them. As a broader discipline, it is aimed at understanding psychological and physical demands, socio-cultural preferences, economic objectives or technology requirements and advancement of future cities.

Urban vibrancy, on the other hand, is a study observing the connection and communication between urban entities, including people, which is externally manifested by dynamic changes in the spatial dimension. Dense street networks, small and medium-sized blocks, diverse and intense buildings and land uses are some of the main indicators of a vibrant urban space.

Phoenix aims to promote urban vibrancy, by making use of morphological metrics of the urban environment. Phoenix PobleNou mainly refers to updated plan decisions for 22@ District in Barcelona by providing all the layers of analysis, development and proposal for the radical change that awaits the area in the near future.

Phoenix PobleNou proposes an inclusive platform to create a communication channel between those who propose changes and those who will experience them in an urban environment.

THE CONCEPT

Urban vibrancy is an extensive field of study that comes up with different perspectives in different contexts. Jane Jacobs first describe urban vibrancy as the “rich diversity of urban life” referring the interactions between residents and their production or living place [1].

Lynch defined it as the capability of an urban area to “support the vital functions, biological requirements and capabilities of human beings and protect the continuation of the species” [2].

Maas has taken the definition one step further and presented three basic components for urban vitality which are people, their activities and opportunities, and the environment where activities occur” [3].

Also, Montgomery contributed to the conceptualization of the term as an integrated representation of the “many and varied comings and goings, meetings and transactions” [4]

Considering the above-mentioned conceptualizations, urban vibrancy for us, is a study associated with activity intensity, the diversity of land-use configurations and the accessibility of a place. In other words, dense street networks, small and medium-sized blocks, and the diversification and intensification of building and land use can be considered as the identifiers of a vibrant area [5].

THE CHALLENGE

The new updated plan for Barcelona’s 22@ innovation district reflects new challenges that respond to today. We aim to respond to this radical changes that awaits the area in the near future, with the tools that we suggest in our project Phoenix. Three of the main conclusions from the updated plan, which were highlighted in our study are[6]:

1. Green streets: According to the climate adaptation measures, the plan proposes a third of vertical and horizontal streets becoming a network of green axes.

2. Social Housing: Under the new plan, 30% of the new developed area of 22@ will be dedicated to housing compared to 10% in 2000.

3. New Sectors: In the original plan, the new companies setting up in the area were mostly tech focused. This has been expanded to businesses in the green, circular economy, social and smart manufacturing sectors that will promote mixed-use spaces.

THE METHODOLOGY

Our 3 basic step building our methodology were: Analysis of the data, Development, and Proposal.

ANALYSIS: Our first step was to divide Urban Morphology elements in 4 main categories: Buildings, Blocks, Roads and Point of Interest(POI). Under each category, we used separate layers of analysis to get the total number Urban Vibrancy for each element.






Our second step was to analyze the Urban Vibrancy of the Ground Level of our area with the help of site observations. We created our own metrics using the following categories: Mixture of Activities, Existence of Items, Frontage Activeness and Mixture of Uses. Lastly, we analyzed people's behaviour through Twitter and GPS data understanding the movement and accumulation within the space.








DEVELOPMENT: We combined the density and entropy maps under 2 categories and then developed a total vibrancy map showing the high, medium, and low vibrancy levels in the study area which helped us to propose relevant interventions in these areas.

USER INTERFACE

Phoenix is about an inclusive platform both for Technical Team members and Community Members. The Technical Teams that have access to the platform will be able to explore all the layers of analysis and propose possible interventions promoting Urban Vibrancy, while, community members will be able to follow, vote, or comment on the proposals suggested by technical teams. In this way, they are given the opportunity to join community debates to learn more about the details related to the proposals, while the technical teams will be able to get feedback from the community about their proposals.







When logging in to the Phoenix platform, the Technical team members can:

1. Explore all the layers of analysis of Urban Vibrancy and On-Going projects
2. Understand the contribution of the Built Environment or the Ground Level to the overall Vibrancy level of a specific area
3. Explore a catalog of suggested interventions proposed by various teams while filtering them based on the category of Urban Vibrancy they affect
4. Add a new proposal or choose from the catalog, locate them through their selected area
5. Take feedback on their suggestions from the community members, and finally,
6. Recalculate total Urban Vibrancy levels of this area and compare the two results



On the other hand, when logging in the Community members can:

1. Explore the ongoing projects and their timelines of an area
2. Navigate through the catalog of possible interventions where they can
3. comment or vote for each proposal and give feedback to the technical teams about their ideas, and finally,
4. Explore located proposals and finally,
5. Participate in community debates, by sharing some personal details, in order to connect with their neighbors.

To explore the user interface more, you can visit our trial run for Phoenix Platform: Phoenix PobleNou

CONCLUSION

As we know, the city is not only what we can see but also what we can not.. Phoenix starts from the morphology of PobleNou to calculate the Urban Vibrancy based on some metrics, but our goal is to create a more dynamic, data-driven and participatory toolkit that will link the future change makers to the community.

You can explore the collective website of the course here: Internet of Buildings Studio | 2020-21