Exploring the Urban Environment

Exploring the Ur- ban Environment Work booklet Camp d’Aprenentatge de Barcelona Name: First / SecondFirst/ • Throughout this booklet you will find different symbols in order to specify the kind of work you will have to do for each activity. Respond, write and complete Search, consult, investigate during the activity Respond, write and complete at Draw the center or home Observe, watch, examine, read Computer activity Take photos Educational material developed by the Camp d’Aprenentatge de Barcelona and published for educational purposes. Copies of the material can be made towards that end. Edition: February 2008 Camp d’Aprenentatge de Barcelona Pg. Mare de Déu del Coll 41-51 08023 Barcelona [email protected] xww.xtec.cat/cda-barcelona 2 Exploring the Urban Environment Index 1. The City 2. Exploring Barcelona 2.1 Barcelona:Eixample 2.2 Itinerary 2.3 Transport in BCN Metro system Bus system 3. Exploration 3.1 Traffic 3.2 The street 3.3 A housing island 3.4 The market 4. LaPedrera Material Individual • Pencil case (with pencils, pens, markers...) • Hardcover folder • This booklet Group • Camera • Map of Barcelona 3 1. The City The majority of all the inhabitants of Catalonia lives in cities. Over 60% of the population of Catalonia lives in the metropolitan area of Barcelona alone (Barcelona and the surrounding towns). Barcelona, according to the census of 2005, has 1.593.075 inhabitants. Cities are complex and subject to change, depending on a city’s physical environment, its history, its culture... Cities have good and bad aspects, some of which can be measured easily (traffic, contamination, transport, imports and exports...) while some are less obvious (values of its citi- zens, feelings...). If we know some of these aspects we can decide what kind of city we would like to live in, what we would like to change and how we could achieve this. We generally walk down the street without paying attention to our surroundings. If we begin to view our everyday life from a different angle, similar to that of an explorer, we can discover the different aspects that account for a city that is not exactly like a living organism, but rather like a large dwelling or environment resulting from the activities of its inhabitants, primarily those of humans. 4 2. Exploring Barcelona A successful explorer has to plan his adventure very well, gathering as much information as possible about the place he is about to discover: • What is its nature. • What sites are to be explored and how can you move between them. • What kind of transportation is to be used. • What is to be done at each place and how. In order to realize your journey you will need: • A map (in the case of a city it’s called a street-map). • A guide to take notes with and consult (this booklet). • A backpack with the material: to write, to observe, to count, to photograph or draw. Although the adventure will be fun, you also have to take possible threats or obstacles into consideration that you might encounter, so while exploring pay attention to: • Don’t go alone: always stay together with your friends and the guide (the professors...). • Be attentive when using transportation, making sure you are using the right one. You also have to know the direction of the journey and where to get off. • Always walk in appropriate places, respecting the sidewalks! • Ah! Your backpack is your most important possession, so keep an eye on it at all times so you don’t happen to lose it at some point... In order to make the most of our exploration and since we are many, we will split up into several groups. • We will go in groups of 15, which again will divide into groups of 5. • Each group of 15 does a different trip and observes and collects the data that corresponds to its itinerary. • The groups of 15 reunite in the end and share their data in order to compare and come to conclusions. 5 2.1 Barcelona: Eixample Barcelona constitutes a metropolis , which means that it consists of one principal and several satellite cities in its surroundings. In this case the urban agglomeration is called The Metropolitan Area of Barcelona . Since we cannot cover all of this vast area, we will focus on the most characteristic part of the city: the Eixample district. Towards the end of the 19th century Barcelona was walled and much smaller. A military law prohibited construction within 2km of the city (the distance covered by canons at the time...). The city there- fore could not grow. When the walls could finally be torn down, in 1858, the “Pla de Barcelona”, city map, could finally be extended towards nearby towns such as Gracia, Sarria, Sant Andreu, Sant Marti... formerly independent (until 1897) and currently neighborhoods of the city. This new district, called the Eixample, was planned by the civic engineer Ildefons Cerda. It was formed after the principles of urbanism, although they reflected the needs of the time (there were basically no cars) and some negative reforms ensued that allowed the city to adapt to its current needs (if there weren’t many cars back then... Now there are many!). The Eixample district is shaped like a grid, with its wide streets between the sea and the mountains and others that run from Montjuic to the Besos river. In order to cross it more easily there are three large avenues, which are the Diagonal, the Gran Via and the Meridiana. One of the most genuine characteristics of the Eixample district are the blocks of housing islands. That is to say that the corners don’t form a right angle, but are “cut”. In this way cars can navigate , as well as load and unload more easily, just like Cerda had planned it. If the Cerda Plan had been executed perfectly, the inside of each island would have held a garden for people to relax in. Unfortunately this aspect was not followed through with, but fortunately some of these spaces have been recovered today, called the Insides of the islands . On a map of Barcelona identify the old city, as well as those that were annexed in 1897: Sarria, Gracia, Sants, Sant Andreu and Horta. Use a colored pen to mark the zone that you believe corresponds to the borders of each one. Explain the differences you see between these urban areas (nature of streets...) and the Eixample. 6 As the city is very big, it was divided into several smaller zones in order to facilitate its organiza- tion. These zones are called the districts . The districts have jurisdiction in such matters as urban planning, streets, maintaining the infrastructure, operating staff and the population, amongst others. The Eixample is currently one of the ten districts of Barcelona. Each district consists of different neighborhoods, called barris . The districts of Barcelona are: 01. Ciutat Vella, 02. Eixample, 03. Sants- Montjuïc, 04. Les Corts, 05. Sarrià-Sant Gervasi, 06. Gràcia, 07. Horta-Guinardó, 08. Nou Barris, 09. Sant Andreu, 10. Sant Martí. Localize the ten districts of Barcelona in the following map. 7 2.2 Itinerary We use the metro ( line 3) from the Camp d’Aprenentatge , located in the neighborhood of Vall- carca (district of Gracia) until the Passeig de Gracia station. At this point we start walking. Each group of 15 has its own itinerary. The objective of the trip is to carefully observe everything we find in the urban environment that usually goes unnoticed by us. This excursion will lead us to discover things such as: • Public transport. • Traffic. • The streets. • The inner part of the housing islands. • The market. Along the way we will make stops in order to carefully observe these aspects and collect data. In the following pages you will find the materials necessary to do so. Fill in the following table to properly plan the exploration. START Camp d’Aprenentatge de Barcelona Address: METRO Line: Departure station: Arrival station: FOOTPATH Group: 1 2 3 4 Guides (professors): BUS Line: Departure station: Arrival station: 8 2.3 Transport in BCN Barcelona, like all big cities, has a great number of commuters every day that go to work, to school, to university... They tend to commute by: bus, car, taxi, bicycle, metro, train, coach... A lot of people still use their own car in order to move within the city. This results in big problems in the interior of the actual city, since it is already saturated with cars with which the pollution increases significantly. A big part of the pollutants in the city comes from the gases released by the engines of cars. In a big city many vehicles circulate every day which release different pollutants to the air. In order to reduce the contamination and to improve the quality of life the use of public transportation should increase. Barcelona, like other big cities, has many different means of public transportation. In Barcelona concrete it is possible to use: the metro, bus, taxi, bicycle, tram, railway, car, motorcycle, and the funicular. In order to travel from one place to another we need to know the route of each of the different means of transport. The metro and bus maps provide us with the information we need to find the closest stop to the destination we are envisioning. It also allows us to select the most fitting itinerary so we can move along very quickly. Connect each definition with the equivalent concept. Those are the vehicles that carry an individual Public transport person.

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