Reviving Casablanca
Context:
Casablanca is a 20century modern city, With the development of its economy in the 50s, it became one of the biggest urban agglomerations in Africa. Today, the city is among the most densely populated cities in the world, the World Economic Forum (WEF) said, citing data from UN Habitat. Casablanca is ranked 5th after Dhaka, Mumbai, Medellin and Manila. According to the HCP, the population density in Casablanca reaches even higher levels exceeding 40,000 inhabitants /km2.
Today, Casablanca is aging, with 4 million inhabitants and less than 1m2 per inhabitant. The community is suffering from pollution, lack of renewable resources, and the only ecosystem around the city (Bouskoura forest) is being destroyed by urban sprawl.
History:
The city contains 5 small parks, that were designed during the protectorate before 1915 by the urban planner J.C Frostier, Today, the parks are isolated from each other, and badly maintained, with little impact on the city.
After the independence in 1956, a big part of the city was created by emergency, in response to a severe crisis of housing, and consequently with no green vision or ecological thinking about the future.
In the 1980’s, while the city was spreading in all directions without any naturel limit and contrary to what Michel Ecochard planned in 1946 when he imagined the spreading would be towards the North, only The planner Michel Pinceau in the new SDAU urban plan 1984 decided to create a green belt that surrounds the whole city of Casablanca with new remote centers away from the true core of the city.
Today, 65% of the city’s current population move around on foot in total absence of parkways in its arteries and main boulevards and in bad conditions and sidewalks that disappear in favor of the tracks.
A new green lung for Casablanca:
In order to regenerate the city, our project is devided into too parts, Casablanca’s big scale and our chosen site scale:
At the city scale
Our First intervention is therefore to create an urban “green lung”, that will be integrated in the existing city, by creating a corridor plans that, Restore, regenerate and connect fragmented existing parks, a green network of parks, corridors, and green alleys, as if they were created initially with the city.
Secondly, our project consists of rehabilite the Bouskoura river, a real landscape heritage of the city, that existed for centuries, before it was deviated and buried underground, an artery that passes mainly through our network of parks including our site which will be an important asset to revive this lanscape heritage so that it is useful, and the use of its waters will be of an enormous benefit to us as water resource, for the watering of parks and corridors, aquatic and even energy resources.
At our site scale
This year, the city’s decision makers decided to relocate a whole slum district of Derb ghalef, in the center of the city, an 8 hectare site among the rare land titles of a very important empty surface with potentiality and quality on all plans between two urban fabrics of different densities near a node between the two Casablanca tram lines and with a cultural and historical richness and value.
The site was occupied by a slum dedicated to trade in full feet (No foundations on the ground) and with only non-hard driveways, constructed with recyclable metallic materials. However, this site is among the points of Casablanca which produce the greatest quantity of Carbon dioxide, as the electricity used 24h / 24h on site even on the sunniest days is produced by diesel generators, in addition to the fact that the site is not connected to the sewage evacuation network nor to the network which takes care of collecting garbage so users are forced to burn their waste which is what increases the level of diffusion of carbon dioxide.
In this urban void we will create an urban forestry including different programs, and connect it to our green network.
