PP Periodica Polytechnica Strategies Resolving Spatial Architecture Fragmentation: Case Study in the Brownfield Zone of Budapest1 45(2), pp. 67-74, 2014 DOI: 10.3311/PPar.7973 Creative Commons Attribution b Alicja Romaniak / Judit Skaliczki / Árpád Szabó CASE STUDY RECEIVED 30 NOVEMBER 2014 Abstract Buda, Pest and Óbuda developed into a unified metropolis The transitory belt of Budapest contains a great number of during the second half of the 19th century because of its mas- underused, brownfield areas awaiting rehabilitation as a result sive agricultural processing industrial development. The for- of the economic transformations of the last few decades. The merly compact and dense market-town became surrounded by paper deals with a characteristic problem of this belt, the vis- an industrial belt, which provided the background for the fur- ual and spatial fragmentation, and examines it at one specific ther development of the city in the early 20th century. [1] location: the neighbourhood of the Gas Works area in Óbuda. This economic belt maintained its importance until the 1980s. Through this example, it proposes specific urban design and In the early 1990s, after a relatively rapid transformation from landscape oriented spatial strategies that could be applied to socialist economic structure to market economy, the urban belt this fragmented site. These strategies use densification tools, with mainly outdated industrial premises lost its function, and deal with the reprogramming of the open landscape, and most of the areas became superfluous. These areas have dete- propose urban landscape design interventions with the goal riorated into derelict and underused sites. In some zones, build- of hydrological management. The objective of the paper is ing utilisation continued with the spaces rented out to minor to identify approaches dealing with the fragmentation of the private enterprises, but in most cases, the building stock of the neighbourhood and propose tools for articulating a more con- old industrial premises prevented complex renewal. nected, visually more integrated environment. The various mid-term and long-term development concepts of the city in the early 2000s have defined two main develop- Keywords ment target zones along the Danube in Budapest. One is north Óbuda · Gas Works · Urban strategy · Urban landscape · of the city centre (Római Beach, Gas Works, Hajógyári Island, Brownfield area Mocsárosdűlő) and the other to the south (North of Csepel Island, Kopaszi Dam). These mainly brownfield zones along the Danube, with their proximity to the centre, still have enor- mous economic and urban development potential today. [8] One specific part of the urban zone north of the city centre, Alicja Romaniak the neighbourhood of the former Óbuda Gas Works, is espe- Institute of Landscape Architecture, The Faculty of Environmental Engineering cially interesting because of its urban heritage and spatial con- and Geodesy, Wroclaw University of Environmental and Life Sciences, ditions. It is situated south of the western pier of the Újpesti 50-363 Wroclaw, pl. Grunwaldzki 24a. Poland railway bridge on the Western side of the Danube and is the e-mail: [email protected] site of the Aquincum Museum, the Graphisoft information technology park, the former Gas Works, a large retail centre Judit Skaliczki Department of Urban Planning and Design, Faculty of Architecture, and numerous other functional units. Budapest University of Technology and Economics, To overcome fragmentation, three distinct urban and landscape H-1111 Budapest, Műegyetem rakpart 3., Hungary design oriented spatial strategies can be applied to such sites. Our e-mail: [email protected] goal is not to give direct and instantly applicable design proposals, but to identify various approaches dealing with the fragmentation Árpád Szabó Department of Urban Planning and Design, Faculty of Architecture, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, 1 the paper was prepared in the context of the Climate KIC programme and H-1111 Budapest, Műegyetem rakpart 3., Hungary the Doctoral School of Architecture at the Budapest University of Technology e-mail: [email protected] and Economics, Faculty of Architecture Strategies Resolving Spatial Fragmentation 2014 45 2 67 of this specific neighbourhood, propose tools for articulating what Although, by the end of the 19th century, the area had should be separated, and connecting that which is disjointed. The become largely uninhabited, the Aranyhegyi-Creek for a long three possible strategies investigated in the paper are: time determined the role of the area. Several watermills were (1) Densification: densification can be used as a tool for located along the creek and at its confluence with the Dan- creating spatial and programmatic continuity by “filling-up” ube. These mills appeared at the end of the Middle Ages and underused intermediate spaces, and by generating functions and could also be used during the winter period since the creek, space usage with building activity. Through construction, new partly fed by thermal water, never froze solid. The Krempl, the programmes and new users can be brought to the site generating Klingelmeier and Elias mills were located on the creek. On the new dynamics. [6] Thus, the intermediate public and privately Danube, boat mills were moored, while north of the site the owned spaces can be viewed as development sites where new Enzinger mill was grinding gunpowder. [18] functional units can be erected. These new functional options The railway line south of the Aranyhegyi Creek and north can be shared by anyone from the surrounding zones, in turn of the investigated area was built between 1894 and 1896 with creating an interface of space usage. the Újpesti railway bridge opened on the 3rd November 1896. (2) Intensification: Instead of densifying with building activ- The idea of building a new municipally owned gas factory in ity, the option of strengthening space usage by introducing new Budapest had already arisen in the 1870s, and the site of this mainly leisure-oriented functional programmes to the open and sandy beach in Óbuda was chosen; nevertheless, implementa- green spaces could also be applied to the site. Green spaces along tion only started several decades later. In 1908, an international the existing brownfield areas are usually regarded as unmain- planning competition was held with Weiss Albert as the win- tained by both possible investors who consider them underused, ner; the final decision on the actual implementation was made but also residents and local municipalities who perceive them as on the 26th May 1909. The concept of the central emblematic abandoned and badly affecting public safety. In the case of brown- element of the factory, the group of three containers around the field rehabilitations, the renewal of green spaces can have special central water tower, had already been finalised by this time. functions: (a) the brownfield areas can be converted into large The construction finished, and the factory opened in 1913. [2] public parks; (b) new developments can be organized around the new parks of the former brownfield areas; (c) they can provide a possibility for the desurbanisation of left-over spaces, by con- verting them into extensive green fields of undeveloped natural or semi-natural vegetation. [9.] In this case, the strategy mainly proposes to reprogramme it as open and public space using exist- ing and planned vegetation as a tool for articulating open space. (3) Redefining landscape with a hydrological strategy: A third strategy to deal with urban fragmentation is using hydrological design tools, with a substantial emphasis on cohesion between water and green elements. In this case, the cohesion is not cre- ated by the continuity of the functional programme, but by the integrity of the landscape while at the same time giving new roles Fig. 1. Landscape conditions of the Óbuda Gas Works today to in-between spaces such as rain-water treatment and preventing (Photo by Alicja Romaniak) stormwater runoff, while providing a variety of natural habitats. The paper investigates the possible use of these three strate- gies on the site of the former Gas Works, through presenting Besides the gas factory, two housing estates were built for the and analysing reference projects with similar approaches. employees. To the south, a series of detached houses with rela- tively large gardens were built for company officials according Past and present-day conditions of the site to the plans of Kálmán Reichl, while to the west, a workers The site has been a wetland; the areas to the north and the housing colony was erected with the assistance of the architect west of our investigated site are still swampy today. The name Almási Balogh Lóránd. Here, a row of two-storey buildings “Mocsárosdűlő” (swampland) is a reminder of a once more surround a central public park while behind the buildings small natural marshland. The area was the location of the civic city private allotment gardens were created. [5] of Aquincum, the capital of Pannonia province, with the Ara- The factory was enlarged several times, and although it nyhegyi Creek passing just north of the ancient city walls. The never reached it originally planned capacity, it served as the Roman city used the creek as a water source, and with its ther- main gas producing plant of the city. In October 1984, due to mal water, the Római Beach north of the site soon became a the technological changes, the plant was completely shut down. favourable place for bathing. The severely contaminated area of the plant was only partly 68 Period. Polytech. Arch. Alicja Romaniak / Judit Skaliczki / Árpád Szabó used, and in 1997 part of the area was sold to Graphisoft, which an introverted way and the intermediate public spaces can be started to develop an information technology park on the site. characterised by abandonment. Most of these areas have visual Along the Szentendrei road, south of the Aquincum site and sound separation walls, which reduces the possibility of and west of the officials’ colony, a housing factory operated visual cohesion and communication.