Declinazione mediterranea di un’urbanistica sostenibile: Marseille Euroméditerranée II

The testing of models of sustainable development in a growing number of cities shows that this has become one of the priority tasks in urban planning, requiring the use of new paradigms of reference, new design principles and new tools for action. At the beginning of the last century the materials used in urban planning were "the sun, space, nature, steel, and reinforced concrete, in that order and in this hierarchy" ( Le Corbusier , 1933). Nowadays, we are witnessing the appearance of new materials such as pollution, waste, land waste, traffic congestion, the abandonment of parts of the city, the indiscriminate use of non-renewable energy sources, unemployment, poverty, social exclusion , inequality in the supply of healthy food and drinking water . How to channel sustainability in urban planning? We need a radical change in development model in terms of sustainability, to keep a balance between economic effectiveness, social cohesion and environmental protection. Marseille, one of the French cities currently undergoing the fastest transformation, is going through a process of profound renewal that occurs in different phases, reflecting a gradual paradigm shift. The initial ambitious project started in the mid-90s (Euromediterranée), mainly based on an idea of urban renewal as re-design of the urban skyline based on an international architectural language , has gradually been replaced by the testing of sustainable development models declined in concordance with the Mediterranean dimension (Euromediterranée II , 2007) , using the characters / resource of the Mediterranean city from a climate , geographical, cultural and social point of view. The new plan for Marseille Mediterranean EcoCité has adopted a low cost, easy tech, high welfare approach. The proposal is to build a new part of the city without consuming any new ground, using non-operational areas that are close to the hypercentre and already served by infrastructure, and restoring the natural environments in abandoned and impermeable areas. On the basis of the great success achieved through the recovery of architecture and urban spaces rather than through the cancellation of the urban fabric for the implementation of 'next generation' architectural projects, the goal became to build la ville sur la ville, requalifying existing assets , enhancing local identity , saving free residual space, and densifying the urban fabric. The transition from the Grands Travaux , in which the Mediterranean identity dissolved in the creative – innovative game of reinterpreting (more or less freely) the architectural heritage and identity of Marseille, to the dimension of the EcoCitè , which focuses its project on the character of the area and local identity, marks the turning point where urban planning goes back to using the sun, the wind, nature and the sea: such resources , particularly available in Mediterranean cities, are an extraordinary, naturally eco-friendly wealth.