Living in Marrakech
A filter between heritage and contemporary design
Landscape & Restoration, Academic
The project aims to mend the building
entities in its overall picture,
in order to mediate the two urban realities, becoming a filter between Medina and Ville Nouvelle
Location
Marrakech, Morocco
Year
2014
Institution
Politecnico di MIlano, Landscape Design Workshop
The workshop has set itself different objectives: the knowledge of social and artistic reality through history, the acquisition of in-depth knowledge of local urban and architectural reality, the interpretation and the return of local architectural and urban features and the design experimentation had as its object a public building located in an urban context.
For the scholar and the western visitor Marrakech is a challenge, to understand the latent order to unveil and read it, through and beyond the rhetoric and the sensitive experience is a fascinating intellectual adventure.
Marrakech is a city of strident contrasts: chaos-stillness, ethereal-massive, light-shadow, local-global, misery-luxury. If the Medina- the ancient walled city-of medieval foundation, seduces and confuses, the Ville Nouvelle-of colonial foundation- and its transformation, leads us to question ourselves about the future.
Is there an arabic way for the construction
of the contemporary city, which does not give up the millenarian character
without being tempted by the
postmodern modus operandi?
Is there an alternative urban
development to the western one?
Through the mapping and analysis we decided to merge the characters of the Medina, (in particular the riyad) and Ville Nouvelle.
The Medina is still preserved from the morphological and socio-anthropic point of view. The project area is located near the ancient walls remained intact, which create a clear physical separation between “inside and outside” between ancient and modern. The Jardin du Majorelle is located at the upper limit, characterised by a plan without a unitary framework that gave rise to a disordered urban body.
SWOT ANALYSIS
STRENGHT
- meeting point of two urban areas
- urban node
- Jardins Majorelle and Medina
- low architectural quality
- lack of actractive public spaces
- lack of phisical and visual permeability along the wall
- inappropriate use of the border wall
- traffic congestion
OPPORTUNITIES
-proximity to high historical and artistical pole
- historical margin: Medina wall
- Jnane Bel Abbas
THREATS
- dislocated green areas without strong identity
- lack of cildren green areas and playground
Reinterpretation of the architectural typology of the
Medina definition of the street front for the
“Museum of the traditional knowledge"
The aim is to reconnect two urban tissues o the city, through design of public spaces (both for residents, children and tourits):
a linear system of gardens, modulated by a network of pavilions, in order to valorize the Medina wallfront trough a linear promenade with urban furniture.
“A secret garden equipped for children, adding water line
passing trough the park creating the visual connection”
Green system that valorizes and reconnects the city, a visual green filter between the main axis and the walls,
connnecting Bab Moussoufa and Majorelle area.
