MATASNILLO: Reimagining an Urban Void
Team
Name: ISABEL BROSTELLA
Nationality: PANAMANIAN
Institution / Company: TALLER GAIA
Name: ISABEL PRECIADO
Nationality: PANAMANIAN
Institution / Company: TALLER GAIA
-FINALIST of Street of Tomorrow Competition
Panama is an urban chaos: a city with nonexistent pedestrian and ecological connectivity, and with a high demand for public spaces. Its rivers act as memories of the dynamic landscape that existed before urbanisation, yet remain secluded and depreciated. The majority have been canalised and degraded to networks of waste disposal. In an urban fabric that has been developed for cars and that has hostile conditions for living systems, the strategic transformation of existing urban systems is necessary.
The Matasnillo serves as an opportunistic terrain to improve life quality. The river is crossed by the main roads of the city; yet communities that face it have erected walls that separate them from it. This project proposes prototypical interventions along the Matasnillo to create a type of street that brings long term ecological and social value.
The proposal creates new soil by working with sediment, controlling erosion, recollecting garbage and alleviating flooding. Modular platforms, floodable terrains, and lookouts are some of the interventions that emerge. By reimagining the river’s use, these create recreational spaces and enhance pedestrian and cycling mobility. With the reappropriation of this urban void we challenge the definition of a river and reestablish its value.
#riverscape #latinamerica #connectivity #ecologicalfunction #urbanregenerationthroughmobilitynodes
