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La Cornisa Bridge

Part 2 Project 2020
Ahmad Khairul Zaim Ab Gafa
University of Portsmouth | UK
Madrid was founded on top of a steep escarpment overlooking the river Manzanares in the 9th century. Said area, known as la cornisa (the cornice), remained an edge for the city during centuries, and became its most iconic urban façade. Today la cornisa still separates two radically different areas: on top, the old and picturesque historic center, teeming with tourism and leisure activities and thoroughly gentrified; below, a generic and quite dull residential neighborhood developed in the mid. 20th century with very different social dynamics.

My proposed bridge acts as an urban infrastructure that connects the two areas and balances their contrasting socio-economic conditions, providing a more even distribution of services and urban functions. The scheme would foster a symbiotic urban relationship by facilitating urban flows and an enhanced vertical connection between the two levels. It would also act as a technical support to which an array of new typologies for living, industry and commerce could be assembled, creating a compact and hybrid micro-world assembled according to strict sustainable criteria.

La Cornisa Bridge would also be a landmark symbolizing the demise of the existing urban and social divide and a more integrated, organic and balanced future.



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2020
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