Katrin Bohn and Andre Viljoen
VARIETY OF OCCUPATION AND OCCUPANTS
An important characteristic of CPULs is the way in which a variety of occupations occur, such as gardening, farming, commuting, playing sport, leisure time activities like parties and picnics, which are undertaken by a variety of occupants, for example, schoolchildren, market gardeners, city dwellers, retired people. . . . This variety of occupants may engage with one or more of the occupations found within CPULs. The range of possible permutations between an individual occupant of a CPUL and their single, or many, activities or occupations is large and greater than in many public facilities, such
as leisure centres. CPULs combine the tranquil qualities of a park with physical activities. They are as likely to be occupied by someone seeking a place to rest and read, as by someone else wanting physical exercise (Figure 25.1).
Continuous networks or local areas of productive urban landscape will provide the space for a variety of activities. Open-air sports areas can be imagined, not bounded by a fence, or enclosed by a roof, but rather a loose network of paths for running and fields for games, like an open-air gym. Schools, leisure centres and clubs overlooking Continuous Productive Urban Landscapes gain access to a shared public realm, providing external space for a number of activities and occupations.
|
|
|
Proximity to ‘nature’, reducing commuting distances and persistent visual stimulation, these qualities, enriching to the experience of place, all suggest the development of building types which engage with a new overlap between green space, dwelling, and use. At a modest scale Figures 25.2 and 25.3 show a proposal mixing spatial types, occupation, building and landscape. Double height balconies create space for landscaped ‘interiors’, and rooftops are crowned with bristling vegetation (see Plate 14). Paths and tracks on roofs reinvent the ideal of the Marseilles Unite.
