“Continued urban development in cities often fails to treat the natural environment as a receptacle of the urban field but as a continuation of it, resulting in the natural landscape being lost, demolished and torn. As a result, with the passage of time we have to understand the importance of nature and then try to confront or reshape the already damaged or abandoned environment”
Waldheim C. [2006] The Landscape Urbanism Reader, Princeton Architectural Press, New York
Urban and territorial gaps alternate in the modern city under different building densities. However, the concept of urban gap is not easy to identify. Initially, they can get the term of areas that are currently empty, but they were once built. Such areas are currently used illegally as parking areas or even worse than garbage disposal sites.
But what is actually the urban gaps?
The notion of space gap implies an absence, either material or functional. Therefore, the key feature is the indeterminate and unclear role in the urban environment. Urban gaps are unclear, unplanned urban areas of the city without identity that have either never acquired a shape or content, or lost their former formation or role.
Urban gaps can therefore be considered as open-air spaces without content and use, buildings or even entire buildings that are now inactive and inactive. They are places of “expectation” and “waiting” as they expect to be integrated into the urban fabric and become an organic part of social relations in a neighborhood or in a city.
How many urban gaps do you know in your neighborhood?