What is the potential of known architectural typologies to operate in the realm of sub-ground leaving more space for the public and nature, relieving congestion every city is faced with? Perceiving urban sub-ground as a new frontier for the development of the resilient city of tomorrow, we opt for architecture that can stratify the surface and span the above and below.
We will test those issues and conditions against Belgrade: a city that survived forty-four crises in its thousand-year history constantly retrieving to its womb. Occupying caves, mines and underground passages and spaces built throughout centuries, Belgrade has an inherent culture of adopting sub-ground space. Nevertheless, it doesn’t have a metro, nor a motorway tunnel.
With a surplus of history and uncritical preservation, outdated public transportation and constant population growth, Belgrade has reached its limits as a functional city. Although it does not have a high density compared to other Metropolis, it is poised with high congestion. The city has reached for an instant solution, building a tunnel across the city easing the infrastructure pressures.
Taking upon on an ongoing project, a 2km long two pipe inner-city motorway tunnel in its design phase, as a generator for future urban developments, we questioned the potency of an existing project with a singular objective to sparkle multilinear approach and initiate offspring of development projects.
Tunnel trajectory became a section line cutting throughout the city, directly exposing the vast space tangible by surface condition and tunnel tubes, challenging the capacity of this new sub-ground street to grow toward the surface and the necessity of surface conditions to expand towards new infrastructure. Sets of spatial topologies are tested against the proposed sub-ground concerning light, a vertical connection, movement, structure, energy and technology.
Surface conditions along the section are identified as a park, public square, street, buildings and parking. Spatial interventions are summarized in five categories; voided volume, spiral, great divide, surface stratification and pile array. The program was encompassed to its widest spectrum and its variations.
Taking the spatial organization of the exhibition organized around two axes, in the realm of a single project, we have further identified three axis that are generative for sub-ground typologies. Comprising a matrix of urban propositions based on the axis of surface condition, spatial intervention and programmatic infusion, a series of urban sub-ground modalities are devised. The triaxial construct serves as a platform for future potentials of urban-ground explorations. It is a collective of new vocabulary for sub-ground planning and regulation going beyond infrastructure and service; a structure and systematization for ongoing research of urban sub-ground.
Our proposition is dual. It is a method, a systematical construct able to serve as a generator and archive of urban sub-ground possibilities. Offering itself for continual research and collective.
As a specific condition in Belgrade, it exposes the potential of the ongoing tunnel project, opening vast sub-ground space for growth and development. We will identify localities along the line exploring their sub-ground development as viable and of public interest. Producing an array of architectural proposals for each of identified locations.
