IS URBAN UNDERGROUND SPACE LUXURY?

The general spirit of sustainable development that determines modern world's choices gives an impulse to the development of underground structures and calls for a different kind of urban development that will be away from every horizontal sprawl or multi-storey construction.. Within the bounds of that kind of planning it is very important to notice the value of compact city which is combined with numerous anticipations for the upgrading of urban environment, and as a result, underground space which is introduced in urban planning comes into sight as the most sustainable solution. Successful incorporation of Athens' underground space into urban planning depends on successful correspondence between the current analysis of the latest developments and the alternative perspectives of development as well as between different sections of strategic issues and the general guidelines for coping with the upcoming problems. What is called for is the creation of new standards that will reverse the priorities from the structured environment to the unstructured one and from the highly exploited aboveground space to the limitedly exploited subsurface.

Delli Aspetti de Paesi Vecchi e nuovi Media per l’Immagine del Paesaggio Old and New Media for the Image of the Landscape, 2016

The most recent politics of regeneration have gone beyond the old traditional systems. At the old approach it is going to replace another, more inter-disciplinary and more active, mainly based on the attractive and “inspiring” capacity of the landscapes, in which are carry out strategies with the purpose of incentivize and promote the economic and social development of the cities. The presented case examines the region of Algarve, in the south of Portugal, and more in detail the recent regeneration politics under development in the city of Loulè. Underground of this city extends 34 km of galleries of the unique rock salt mine in Portugal, today in phase of abandon. Recent politics about the urban regeneration of Loulè foresee that this underground landscape with incredible spatial and climate qualities (interior temperature 23° constant, and relative humidity 50% render this place a perfect ambient for the respiratory diseases therapy) will became part of the city, finding a strong link with the surface. The goal toward the Loulè politics are actually in agreement is to promote an high quality urban tourist product able to produce effects and interactions not only in the activities related with the tourism, (as ticket office, info-point etc. etc.) but in all urban functions. After an international workshop, which looks the active involvement of population, architects, landscape architects and local administration, have been developed some visions, that concern both the future function of this underground landscape and tangible design aspects. One of this is the accessibility at the underground landscape interpreted as a narrative path capable to explain and reveal, through some spatial sequence, a landscape of exceptional artistic inspiration destined to became a fulcrum of the city future urban and social development.

VLC arquitectura. Research Journal, 2017

As Manuel de Solà-Morales noted, urbanity relies on the variety and quality of relations between things, materials and human beings. Considered as such, how are we to achieve an underground urbanity? This paper seeks to address this question through a focussed reading of a number of European urban projects from the 20th century; all of which put special care into ensuring the quality of their subterranean passageways. We begin with the carrefour à giration, which was designed by Eugène Hénard in 1906, in order to identify four fundamental attributes of this kind of urbanity: legibility, spatiality, accessibility and activity. We then continue with a qualitative analysis of the 1933 Blå Bodarna passageway designed by Tage William-Olsson and Holger Blom in Slussen (Stockholm). Looking ahead some decades later, the sequence of passages under the Vienna Ring, built during the mayoralty of Franz J. Jonas, provides a good example of how fundamental the connectivity to the underground public transport system was to the success of these spaces. Finally, the article closes with a review of those underground places found in Santiago Calatrava's Stadelhofen Station and the Stationsplein by Manuel de Solà-Morales: from the carrefour à étages multiples to the 'inner street'.

Underground Built Heritage Valorisation A Handbook, 2021

Underground Built Heritage (UBH) plays a specific role in structuring and transforming urban spaces, intended as multi-layered settled areas featured both by social and cultural aspects and by deep symbolic implications still interacting with contemporary planning decisions. Its specificity can outline general urban history’s items, crucial steps into the processes of settlement transformation, together with forms and modalities of the processes of spaces semantisation and re-semantisation. The analysis of situations and case studies helps to clarify and to define key concepts, definitions, and practices in urban planning processes, settlement transformation and heritage enhancement. Perspectives of integrated enhancement of urban environments are also highlighted, as well as urban planning actions based on the cultural and identity dimension of heritage and societies.

IAEME, 2019

The underground architecture is linked to the history of human beings as it was the first architecture to resort to it in the early days of human life for housing and protection within the ecosystem. However, life soon developed in various technological and construction fields with many disadvantages that contributed to influencing the ecosystem. Including architects to the need to preserve the ecosystem and return to such a kind of architecture ,but in line with the progress of urban and technology ,to address this research to study the underground architecture as an architectural and environmental concept through the most important trends and ideas an architecture that has been advocated by many architectural movements , and the possibility of applying such kind of architecture as a technique in the future to reach a number of conclusions and recommendations to work on the rise of this type of research to serve the life humanity as a whole .

The most recent politics of regeneration have gone beyond the old traditional systems. At the old approach it is going to replace another, more inter-disciplinary and more active, mainly based on the attractive and “inspiring” capacity of the landscapes, in which are carry out strategies with the purpose of incentivize and promote the economic and social development of the cities. The presented case examines the region of Algarve, in the south of Portugal, and more in detail the recent regeneration politics under development in the city of Loulè. Underground of this city extends 34 km of galleries of the unique rock salt mine in Portugal, today in phase of abandon. Recent politics about the urban regeneration of Loulè foresee that this underground landscape with incredible spatial and climate qualities (interior temperature 23° constant, and relative humidity 50% render this place a perfect ambient for the respiratory diseases therapy) will became part of the city, finding a strong link with the surface. The goal toward the Loulè politics are actually in agreement is to promote an high quality urban tourist product able to produce effects and interactions not only in the activities related with the tourism, (as ticket office, info-point etc. etc.) but in all urban functions. After an international workshop, which looks the active involvement of population, architects, landscape architects and local administration, have been developed some visions, that concern both the future function of this underground landscape and tangible design aspects. One of this is the accessibility at the underground landscape interpreted as a narrative path capable to explain and reveal, through some spatial sequence, a landscape of exceptional artistic inspiration destined to became a fulcrum of the city future urban and social development.

Cities, 1999

It is only during the last decade that there has been a growing consciousness and alertness regarding environmental problems. At the same time, infrastructure is becoming more complex, demanding extra space and directly affecting the quality of life in the urban environment. Building underground would initiate new developments and also improve the quality of life. Today, cities cannot withstand traditional planning and building practice, and in the following years they will have to go through a transformation process. This paper will deal with the planning and design aspects of a few realised underground projects. These projects are good examples of improving the urban environment just by better "layering" and concentration of functions. Through specific design proposals they also managed to improve the quality of the underground environment, showing that the prejudices regarding underground spaces, so deeply anchored, have little justification. Discussing the "Quality of Life" it is not possible to omit Information and Communication Technology (ICT), the role it can play in daily activities and influence it may have on urban forms in the future.

2001

1 ABSTRACT Urban agglomerations in the world metropolis demand new solutions to face the economical, social, ecological and physical problems. Many ideas concentrate mainly to above ground to either vertical and/or horizontal extension in the cities, with higher skyskrapers or even cities in the ocean. But what about using underground space? Fighting with the attributes of unpleasent surrounding, images of darkness, dampness and sickness, a lot of people don‘t feel sympathy for living underground. But the concept to live in depth, caves, catacombs or even cities below the surface is pretty old. Supported by literary and mystic traditions like travel to the underworld, a vision is initiated, to think more about these possibilities and a new direction of thinking for planners. The advantages of using the underground are obvious. In metropolitan cities in Netherlands, Israel or Japan, which have to face growing population, agricultural as well as open green spaces have to be protected....

Procedia Engineering, 2017

The ACUUS, the Associated research Centers for the Urban Underground Space, was established in Montreal in 1997 to promote partnership amongst all actors involved in the planning, design, construction, management and research on urban underground space. To explain how ACUUS has become an international organization over the years, and recognized by UN-Habitat, the evolution of global attention on underground space since the 19th century, with the gradual arrival of national and international organizations dedicated to the underground. Based on personal experience as a municipal planner, ways in which urban underground space should be planned and managed are described. The underground should be a place for people as much as for tunnels and public utilities. Montreal Underground City, one of the largest of its kind in the world, is used to demonstrate how, since 1962, underground use can evolve and the sub-surface can be "humanized". Some global trends are described, and challenges that need to be overcome in order to "populate" the underground, are also highlighted.