Forest as Infrastructure Space - RIGA

inspired by

Project Developed by our team in 2016 Microrayon: Riga as a Shrinking City

Urbanism and Societal Change Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen

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A COLLECTION OF 8 PROJECTS Urbanism and Societal Change The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts

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Forest as Infrastructure Space This project, ranging from 1:50,000 to 1:5 in scale, shows that shrinking cities can be an enjoyable experience through the design of Riga over the next 200 years. The team’s initial research found the importance of forestry culturally and economically to Latvia and also became a relevant medium to design with.

As opposed to constructing buildings, the design of a city through forestry allows an adaptability and a timed system that can change form positively.

01 Forest and the Microrayon, Ziepniekkalns, Riga

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Saskia Blake Aleksander Novak Jack Perry

An overt greenbelt surrounds the city and nearby towns to shape the future form of Riga whilst receding and advancing into the city responding to population shifts. Inside the city threads of forestry are planted giving Riga a new identity.

The project zooms into situations to show how the wider infrastructural logic works at a human scale. The zoom-ins cover a width of sites and times across Riga’s urban and exurban landscape.

02 Daugavgrivas Cemetry

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01 Projected shrinkage and growth in Riga

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<500 500<1000 1000<2500 2500<5000 5000<10000 10000<20000 20000<30000 30000<40000 40000<50000 50,000< Micro-rayon

02 Current and future possible population densities Riga based upon UN projections 900,000 900,000

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05 Forest

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Forest as Infrastructure Space

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Forest as Infrastructure Space

Threads Through the City As well as the forest infrastructure working at the edge of the city, it also penetrates the city as it forms the new identity of Riga. Threads of forestry run through the city along main roads, along bike paths, between existing parks and through emptying parts of the city.

The transformed streets are not part of the production cycle of forestry as in the industrial belt and microrayons, but

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function here recreationally.

The over- dimensioned streets are often narrowed and the new pavement becomes a mixture of surface conditions as nature takes over the street from the ground up to the hanging street lights to create a fully immersive experience along the threads.

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Forest as Infrastructure Space

City-Centre Emptiness This situation investigates a part of the city centre that has been drastically affected by depopulation, leaving empty sites and buildings.

The design brings countryside back into the city, replacing the under-used urbanity of a city street into a recreational collection of easy to maintain pocket parks along a street orientated to enjoing urban forestry.

01 Proposed Section - simple construction and easy to maintain in which the nature seems to take control

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02 Existing Plan - over-dimensioned and designed to be most efficient for the car

03 Proposed Plan - bringing the countryside back into the city and the function of the street is now recreation

04 Proposed Pocket Park - a derelict site of a former industrial space is converted into a semi-wild space of recreation

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Forest as Infrastructure Space

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01 Existing - Empty shop on a quiet and overdimensioned road

02 2030 - A trellace has been added to the shop front and the street has been made recreational

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Forest as Infrastructure Space

Future Suburbia W h i l s t t h e c u r re n t s p r aw l d e ve lopments of Riga market the idea of countryside living, the reality is a stark contrast of asphalt to serve the car-driven culture of post-soviet Latvia.

The proposal provides the desired lifestyle of suburban living in a future condition of Riga 100 or even 200 years into the future.

Instead of designing for a shrinking

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population this proposal considers the possible future rise in population of Riga. Therefore, it drastically reduces car parking for a future more reliant on public transport.

It provides both a denser use of space and a closer relationship to nature, whilst also adding local amenities to diversify the currently mono-functional development.

02 Existing Situation - Todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s market version of a microrayon. An exurban development of asphalt and car parking

03 2200 Situation - Providing a better realisation of suburbia and densifying with a typology to make the most of forest living

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Forest as Infrastructure Space

Reclaiming the industrial belt This proposal focuses on the transformation of the industrial belt, built in 1965 together with its adjacent microrayons in Imanta district. The set of interventions relates to siteâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s history beeing at first an integral part of soviet urban fabric, becoming again a site of production for the new Riga forest economy.

By further modernization of the local district heating plant, usage of biofuels, and provision of localized water treatment system we are able to ensure cost-efficient supply of ressources, such as heat, electricity, wa-

Modernization of CHP Imanta

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ter and cooling to newly established greenhouses, nurseries and microrayon inhabitants.

The radical nature of the proposal lies in its adaptive reuse of existing conditions and ressources, transforming the site into a testbed for integrated urban environment projects and reclaimed waste landscape which serves the public and environment.

The greater objective is to ensure more infrastructural adaptability in context of rapid urban, political and economic changes, preparing the city of Riga for a variety of future urban possibilities.

Decentralization of water infrastructure

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The Microrayon

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Price dynamics comparison of natural gas and biofuel (wood chips)

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Shrinking population / Expanding infrastructure - Comparison [Cities and Water Conference Leeuwarden 11.02.2016] Year of 1995 = 100% Total length of water supply and sewerage network Number of residents in Riga Water sales volume

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Raclaiming the vacant site - transformed interior landscape of former RRR factory

The marsch - final stage of water treatment

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