Rio Claro - Aerodrome

The general objective of Intervention Plan is characterizing the areas as regional centralities by means of reurbanization, taking into consideration private capital investment possibility together and its strategic character toward the set of actions of municipal interest.

General consideration

Rio Claro Municipality is inserted into such a historical situation that it could be defined as the great moment of opportunity in view of population growth prediction and upcoming urban equipment, such as technology centers, universities, industry, commerce and a very accentuated scenario of social advancement, added to a private initiative stress for new investments. The city offers expectant areas with more than 600,000 m² of empty area inside the consolidated physical structure of the city. Nothing more appropriate than considering these sites as special growing sectors and as triggers of contamination for the sake of the whole city’s transformation.

According to international experience for over the last 20 years, it is possible to state that meaningful city transformation has not been generated from generalist strategic masterplans, but from specially designed projects toward strategic areas.

Intervention description for the Plan implementation

Considering trends of population growth in medium-sized cities of Sao Paulo’s urban framework as well as the main characteristics of the land resulting from Rio Claro aerodrome replacement, – which has had its nearby surroundings recently occupied, and has become one of the expanded urban areas in the municipality, with population growth from 15 to 100% according to the previous two demographic censuses – and a privileged location close to the central areas, all of which provided with urban infrastructure, it has been appointed the elaboration of a project concerning parceling, use and occupancy of the land, serving a new model of occupancy toward the city growth, and without the necessity of expanding the urban framework.

This proposition is due to the fact that the urbanization horizontal expansion, even in non-metropolitan cities, implies high costs of infrastructure, transportation and public equipment for public authorities, and it also contributes to an increase in displacement inside the city. Another problem is the presence of environmental protection areas around the current urban perimeter, consequently limiting the territory occupancy.

The project intended for parceling, use and occupancy of the land shall privilege the vertical residential use for different income rate, through the establishment of different measures toward the housing unit, and the implementation of public spaces with green areas and equipment of social and leisure interest, utilizing the typologies previously proposed and established by the current urban legislation, or even suggesting the inclusion of new typologies into future elaborated rules.

The main interventions in the Aerodrome area consist of:

Privileging housing implantation

The area is located in one of the city’s expansion vectors and, because of the relocation of the municipality airport, it is interesting for the urban project to take advantage of its strategic location, keeping a connection with the existing urban framework, therefore qualifying commercial, service and institutional uses intended for the area.

Introducing equipment of regional value to the green área

Located along the principal access of the municipality, through Washington Luís Road (SP-310), the green areas give a special meaning to the intervention area and its surroundings, as well as innumerous purposes (residential, commercial and services) in order to transform Rio Claro into a differentiated place, capable of providing the city with regional accessibility and visibility.

The suggested equipment could come to characterize Rio Claro as the region technological center, in which would be introduced technical schools, universities, technological research centers, a wide convention center, as well as collective leisure equipment, sporting and cultural, all of them inserted within a park willing to becoming an unquestionable focus of attraction to the city and toward nearby municipalities.

Implanting new road connections

New road connections of local and regional aspect in order to improve accessibility inside the intervention area itself and with the nearby surrounding, by means of:

Communication with the surrounding roads therefore connecting the existing road system ground plan, mainly the east-west one, and the implantation of north-south connecting routes, all of them green-like designed and permitting a better distribution of the local traffic;

Pedestrian sidewalks and bicycle routes inside the green area facilitating the institutional building access – as service, leisure, sporting and cultural ones – and the other intervention parts, minimizing the necessity of places designed for adjacent parking lots around the buildings and interconnecting all the residential areas with the public transportation system.

Implanting social housing

Land areas designated to social housing implantation, in order to take advantage of the existing infrastructure, including the transportation one.

Location:
Rio Claro, SP

Year:
2008-2009

Client:
Rio Claro City Hall

Intervention area:
36 ha

Architecture and Urbanism:
VIGLIECCA&ASSOC
Hector Vigliecca, Luciene Quel, Ronald Werner Fiedler, Neli Shimizu, Ruben Otero, Thaísa Fróes, Adda Ungaretti, Gerônimo Stéfani, Ignácio Errandonea, Pedro Guglielmi, Fabio Pittas, Paulo Serra, Luci Maie

Urbanism and legislation consultant:
Caroline Bertoldi