Public Gaps (2011)

Retail

Casablanca, Morocco

The aim of the project is to create an ecologic porous system of public spaces in Casablanca, designed as an attractive field of programs in a key point of the city. It is sustainable because it always ensures material and energetic transformation thanks to the patios, by providing a continuous source of natural energy.

The Geometry

Enclosing 10,000 square meters, the spatial germ of the project is the gap, and the volume conducts all exchanges with the outside environment trough these north facing pores: visitor entry, outside visits, natural light entry, climate control and energy capture.

The Place

Linking two very different worlds, the “slums” to the “central carrieres”, a organized residential area with a caotic one, it is a key element in the city´s pedestrian infrastructure, creating new routes and encouraging life in the Abdelkader district.It is conceived as an organism that not only creates public spaces, it connects the surrounding ones, and creating a limitless network of public spaces both large and small, by the alternation of open spaces and cavities, sharing its public dimension with the city.

The orientation and placement of the buildings is optimized in relation to the sun’s path as well as to maximize views out towards the surrounding city.

The Program

These cavities work as foci, hosting within its perimeter the permanent program, and then spreading waves of possible program around themselves. In the lower floor each hole provides a server or storage space, and parking. Varying in size, the hole generates the different programs, from classrooms, markets, auditoriums, to squares and great parks.

The Construction materials

The voids are materialized by a metal frames system following the geometrical linear grid created by the field strengths. It is made by using IPE beams and circular columns and a textile skin.

The Climate control mechanism

The system of inclusions is also the climate control mechanism for the building: natural energy exchange machines. Its form, facing the northern light and warped to block out the entry of direct summer radiation, and the inclusion of evaporative cooling systems and vegetation, reduce the temperature by several degrees: natural cooling mechanisms that prepare the air for cooling and low-speed propulsion through the floor into the large hall. The inclusion of micro-greenhouses inverts the operation in winter. Around, changing colour patterns raise the air speed and cool the roof surface temperature, while the large shadows of photo voltaic panels reduce the building´s energy consumption.

The design of the pores follows formal criteria that optimize current induction and air flow into the pores. Air form the ventilation and climate control system is exchanged through the pores to produce user comfort conditions in the market. Also, each pore has a greenhouse on its north side to capture solar radiation in winter, heating the air in the climate control system.

It is a ecological and gravitational field that creates centralities of public space, which extends throughout the city of Casablanca.