Narrative infrastructure and functional heritage

The New Dutch Waterline was built to defend Holland. It comprised of a system of waterworks for inundating and military elements for troops. This study will focus on the part around Utrecht of the New Dutch Waterline, one which is in urban fringe and faces urbanization.

Pumps and sluices guide the water out of the deep lying polders, but in war-time the water could be directed into the polder. This water system works based on boezem-polder system. The boezem system is the discharge water network which brings the polder water from into the outer water. The whole water system can be set in motion by switching the pumping stations on and off or changing the direction of the water flow. In a normal situation the water table is higher during winter. During a dry summer, water needs to be taken in from the boezem-system.

Traditional water management brings some problems. With the climate change, the pump station and the boezem with the limited capacity of are becoming the bottleneck of the drainage system. Also, the water full of phosphorus in the agriculture area is pumped into the cleaner boezem. Even worse, now, low groundwater level in the peat polder results in aeration of the peat soil, followed by oxidation of peat, which shrinks, causing subsidence.

With the expansion of city, heavy infrastructure is currently blocking the movements of people and turning the city into fragments. A lot of space including the heritage is less accessible. The experience and representation of the NDW as linear cultural heritage is harmed by the urban fragment.

On the one hand, after the line lost its defensive function, this unique historic legacy was threatened with the loss of its unity as a spatial entity and special memory, like something on flooding for defense.On the other hand, urbanization is making the environment of the heritage complex and complex environments add new layer of meaning to the heritage that makes it unique. The forts and other elements are scattered in the natural area, cultural area and urban area. Urbanization is separating the heritage in different space-time fabrics and people could travel through time along the NDW.

Two strategies are proposed to repair the functional infrastructure and represent the narrative heritage. A territorial park system is proposed to de-fragment and represent the new spatial character of the heritage elements colored by different surroundings. The narrative water infrastructures aim to provide resilient wetland for the boezem-polder system and represent the history on the inundation. Both of them provide a flexible framework.

Expect defragmenting, the different spatial characters are strengthen. The heritage elements are colored by different surroundings. These elements are like scattered in different space-time. Some of them are in nature, some in cultural landscape and some in urban landscape.

Three of the transition nodes are shown as case. In the transition nodes, the experience from the different environments and heritage are stressed at the same time. Sound of poplar leaves which is typical in the clay polder, tactile impression of water in the canal, the feeling in the forest, sound of cars, and typical paving are mixed at the transition node. Therefore, people can feel the transform of environment and notice the different character of

New water infrastructure changes the water management from rapid drainage to hold and store and also represent the inundation image. Seasonal wetlands are set at the edge of boezem to be adaptive for a role in rainwater storage. At the same time, the seasonal flooding can represent the inundation image.