URBAN CONTINUITY Karim Abou Jaoude He graduated at the American University of Beirut (AUB) in 2009, with a degree in Landscape Design & Ecological Management. He has worked in an architecture studio for about a year, focusing on projects of open spaces in the Beirut central district. As freelance architect, he developed also some projects for outdoor spaces of private residences.
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The first impression about the territory is the pattern made by the urban clusters scattered in the area and the voids and residual spaces they form. The territory along FLP line is characterized by widespread and disjointed forms of urbanization with no identity or character, living in the shadow of the financial centre of Lugano. Starting from this, the main concept is to connect all the towns along the FLP line from Ponte Tresa to Lugano from the visual and functional point of view, in order to reinforce the idea of a filament city made of different entities. By defining the borders and edges of each town, which are either geographical or natural, set by infrastructure or manmade interventions, it is possible to control and organize the urban sprawl of the villages and give shape to the residual spaces in between. They can be designed to connect each town to the one after it, since the void spaces are within walkable distance. Even more, as each void differs from the other in terms of landscape scenery, topography and nature, the setting is perfect for
local scale interventions. The focus of the project is concentrated in Caslano and Magliaso area, and the general strategy is to strengthen the urban continuity by doubling the path of the FLP line and adding a soft mobility line. This last one is identified with one of the existing contour lines, which actually corresponds to the historical via Regina that is connecting all the landmarks and historical points of the area. The proposed soft mobility intervention is conceived in the form of wooden decks and bridges that smoothly fit in the existing landscape, following the topographic nature of the area where the slope is steep, and turning into a series of public and open spaces where the topographic nature is more gentle. Then, working on the connections between the urban mobility line and the soft mobility one, new nodes are proposed in order to stimulate the use of the FLP line, even for little scale movements of tourist and local users. Through punctual local interventions, the continuity of the urban filament is controlled on a territorial scale.
planning
URBAN CONTINUITY