Mapping Of La Cañada Real Galiana
TU/Delft Design Studio | MSc Final Thesis, Border Condition [Madrid - 2012]
Collaborators: Isabel Driessen, Yaron Israel, Rutger Kraal, Can Liu, Robbie Neijzen, Erik Stange, Yilin Zhou
18 km to the south east of Madrid, lays a strip of cañada that has developed differently: the Cañada Real Galiana. This strip houses approximately 40.000 people, all of them living in illegality. Still today, no one is allowed to build on this land. Meaning that municipalities, when wanting to build crossing infrastructure, have to tunnel under or bridge over it.
While exploring the Cañada Real, there was always an acute awareness of where we could and where we could not go. We were constantly trying to understand the social, physical, and visual boundaries around us to make sure we were not causing too much interference with our visit. In some areas we were allowed to take pictures and people wanted to tell us their story, while in others the inhabitants were protecting their homes from being photographed and asked us to leave and looked away. There were areas where the houses were hidden behind fences and walls, and areas where the houses were exposed to the street to show off their wealth. This constant awareness of limitations led us to the theme of accessibility as the main topic of our research project. In the following maps different aspects of the theme of accessibility are analyzed and graphically represented.
The Cañada Real is broken by the Madrid urban transportation systems into six sectors. Although it is 15 kilometers long, it is indeed a highly closed-off strip with only nine external access points. What is noteworthy is that the public transportation spots gather in the adjacent urbanized areas.
External Accessibility: Cañada Real is a visually closed-off strip as well. It is surrounded by wide grassland and blocked by land-filled mountains. While on public transportation, we can rarely see the area even though we know we are just next to it. However, at several specific points, it becomes visible.
The experience of walking through the Cañada Real was defined by many different aspects, where we physically went was very different from the mental experience we had. In this map we separated our experience in three different subjects. The physical accessibility is shown in the red line and marks our path as we walked. The grey surfaces are the areas visible to us while walking. The mental experience of accessibility is drawn in the blue line and shows the spatial feeling affected by the physical and visual experience and the feeling of (in) security. When we go further south we see that the physical, visual and mental experience are becoming more and more unlike one another. The built strip is opening up to the landscape and this has in some areas a wider mental, visual and physical experience as a result. In some cases the feeling of security is very low and the mental experience becomes very closed off while the view is wide.
Physical accessibility: is the most tangible way of feeling and expressing accessibility. It physically defines where we can access, where we cannot, and accessible levels, such as how far fast it could be accessed. In Cañada, physical accessibility is mostly represented by vertical elements and horizontal surfaces. Both vertical elements and horizontal surfaces are diverse in the whole strip.
Visual accessibility: is simply defined as whatever it is that our sight can reach. The boundaries of this accessibility may or may not vary from the borders of physical accessibility, depending on the specific condition. This means that distance can become a disadvantage in the sense of the lowered quality of view from a far, but it can also be an advantage as it allows views, which are blocked when standing close. The overall visible areas form another layer in our field of exploration, which was constantly being monitored by the local inhabitants.
As we experienced the transitions of the Cañada Real Galiana, one of the findings we had was that the level of insecurity they live in, goes hand in hand with the level of social control they set up for themselves. Looking into public domain in relation to the semi-private domain, an understanding can be gained about how the inhabitants set up their social control.
The best description of our experience of the Cañada Real is a sequence of fragments. We call the Cañada a sequence of fragments as our experience was very diverse throughout the 15 km strip. While studying the area before the visit, the area was defined as a linear city. After visiting it becomes clear that this is not a correct description because of the diverse characteristics of the Cañada. There are 13 different fragments defined based on this exploration while visiting the area. The cuts between the fragments are in most cases very rigid without any transition. Since every fragment was experienced in a various way they also ask for varied notations. All the fragments are representing the most dominant aspect of our experience and drawn in a notation which fits the defined fragment.