VIRTUAL Barcelona Livable Cities

Abstract

Superblocks as used in early modern urban planning continue to have a profound influence on the process of urban expansion, social gentrification and the form, structure and functioning of the city. There is a need to transform the modern superblock to take advantage of their position in the central city and reduce traffic flows across the megalopolis. Superblocks designed by C. A. Doxiadis & Doxiadis Associates were foundational elements to Ekistics cities. In the case of Riyadh Saudi Arabia, 2 km x 2 km Ekistics CC V superblocks structure the spatial form of the early modern in 1972 master plan. At a macro city scale these modules continue to exerts pervasive influence on daily movement patterns across the Riyadh expanding urban-region that has increasingly generated high levels of traffic congestion on the main arterial structure. To advance the debate on revitalization approaches, this spatial morphological study characterizes the presence of movement integration and centrality within five superblocks as established by their distinctive spatial layout of sub-blocks, street patterns, and open spaces. A survey of spatial change in superblock layouts contrasts two time periods, 2008 and 2024, to describe the morphogenesis in their patterns of road hierarchy, block sub-division, and plot aggregation for compact and open space redevelopment. A Space syntax syntactical analysis identifies hidden integration cores, and characterize their step depth accessibility (adjacencies and distance relationships) to interior and perimeter sub-block faces within each configured layout.