Superisolates how to change everything without changing anything

CYCLE: Ideas and Figures. Stories of innovative strategies for architecture.
SPEAKER: Salvator Rueda
DATE: Thursday, March 20, 6 p.m.

The greatest sin of planners has been to allow cars to occupy all the neighborhoods of our cities without taking into account the characteristics of a device that circulates 5 or 6 times faster than the movement of a pedestrian. The consequences are disastrous: massive occupation of public space; air pollution; noise; heat island effect; excessive energy consumption; massive CO2 emissions; congestion; health impacts, etc.

The superblock model, with a simple redesign of transportation networks, frees up 70% of the public space dedicated to traffic and significantly reduces all urban dysfunctions generated by the current model of mobility and public space mentioned above, and does so by ensuring the functionality and organization of the city by reducing vehicular traffic by between 10 and 15%.

Superblocks transform streets into squares, allowing the multiplication of uses of public space. Displacement, which is the predominant use, gives way to entertainment, exchange, culture, art, and public space as the agora. The designers' goal is no longer the pedestrian, as a mode of transportation, but the citizen (something more than a being who moves on foot) who in the superisolates can exercise all his rights, that is, all the uses of public space, mentioned above.

Salvador Rueda is a Spanish urban ecologist, president of Fundación Ecología Urbana y Territorial and founder of Agencia de Ecología Urbana de Barcelona, which he directed from 2000 to 2020. His academic background includes degrees in Biological Sciences and Psychology from the University of Barcelona, as well as degrees in Environmental Engineering and Energy Management.

Throughout his career, he has held management positions in the environmental departments of the Generalitat de Catalunya and Barcelona City Council. He is known for developing the concept of “supermanzana,” an urban planning model aimed at improving sustainability and quality of life in cities. Rueda has also coordinated international projects, including the Urban Regeneration Plan for the Historic Center of Quito and the Buenos Aires Public Space Design Manual. He is the author of numerous books and scholarly articles on urban ecology and sustainable planning.

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