Urban Plateau

Abstract

A maritime metropolis that acts as a gateway from which elements from all over the world can enter and mix, resulting in a repository of a large set of heterogeneous entities; Marseille is a knot of flows and fluxes intensifying and manifesting in an assemblage of entities that are products of continuous historical processes. It is a platform of Global trajectories that are resembled in local realities, a city of a hybrid character and a strong transitional status. A place of becomings and a field of latent potentiality and productive possibilities.
In Marseille, public spaces are the residue of rigid bordering processes conducted by different social constructs; Abolishing many possibilities for a new identity to emerge. However, rhizomatic threshold can be spotted on different scales. One that accommodates the co-presence of different parts. As observed, they are the spaces where multiple flows intersect. For example, the flows of people and commodities in the Noailles market.
What is still missing is the Medi-terrain that incorporates relations of exteriority between the components. Where within the encounters, interactions take place, capacities are employed and new properties emerge; A Spatio-temporal dynamic threshold -a field of intensities- where the exchange of commodities, information, and energy always happens: in other words, a place of the continuous act of territorialization, reterritorialization and deterritorialization.
The issue, therefore, is that well-determined, Fixed structures, control, and regulations in the urban space are not providing order anymore in the age of uncertainty and are not fostering the place for becoming (the presence of new possibilities). It is no longer efficient to solidify long-term urban plans, in the age of rapid change. The rigidity of the current urban environment made it very difficult to intervene and adapt to new needs and changing situations. That resulted in creating unpleasant in-conflict urban spaces. To transform the character of our modern urban environments, interventions should take into consideration the capacity of the public space to adapt to changeable conditions seeking more resilience and flexibility and allow for the physical manifestation of possibilities.

The end result is not a conventional architectural construct. it is also not a direct functional solution for a problem. The resulting intervention is a response to the contemporary urban condition and an attempt to create a plateau for dynamic network of dependency to encourage people to interact, catalyze the emergence of unplanned activities, inspire tolerance towards difference, and easily adapt to changing situations