Case Studies

from Urban design studio project_Negotiating land water mediation

Public Spaces and Un-Explored Character of Flora

Location: Pujiang, East China.

Project: Building A Greenway: Puyangjiang River Corridor

About

The Puyangjiang River and its tributaries were heavily polluted, watercourses were channelised, and riverbeds were turned into sand quarries. The river became a backyard dump and people turned away from it. The river that used to be the pride and unifying tie of the community had become associated with ugliness, foul smells and danger.

Winding pedestrian and bike paths as well as boardwalks are built along both banks of the river; bridges are built across the river to connect communities at both sides; resting platforms and gathering places are built to activate the greenway; and an environmental interpretation system is designed to tell the natural and cultural stories of the river corridor.

Location: Yanweizhou, Jinhua city, China

Project: Yanweizhou Wetland Park- A resilient landscape, Jinhua

About

The inaccessibility of the river led to the underutilisation of the surrounding cultural facilities, and the adjacent green spaces. The riparian wetland was fragmented or destroyed by sand quarries. The existing wetland was covered with poplar trees and Chinese Wingnut that provided habitat for native birds.

The project aimed to preserve the remaining patch of riparian habitat while providing amenities to the residents of the dense urban center; Identify best approach to flood control (prevention with a high, concrete retaining wall or cooperation by allowing the park to flood);Integrate the existing building into the surrounding environment to create a cohesive landscape; and Connect the separated city to the natural riparian landscape to strengthen the community and cultural identity of the city

Location: River Air, State of Geneva, Switzerland.

Project: Renaturation of the River Air

About

Restoring the river to its original shape and meanders by destroying the canal. The proposed project combining the clear territorial cut of the canal with a parallel new vast divagation space for the river. In the process, the canal became the pointer for the transformations, a reference line providing the possibility of understanding a before and an after, a becoming which superimposes both situations and accepts that something began which was already there.

Legitimate necessities of environmental improvement are neglected in any design values or considerations: a clear opposition of nature and culture. The project attempts to propose an alternative path, where the urgent ecological shifts are incorporated in a larger cultural change.

Location: Los Angeles, USA

Project: LA River Revitalization: A City Rediscovers Its Flow

About

The Los Angeles River, once the fount of life for generations of people and wildlife, had been turned into a 51-mile cement flood control gulch splashed with reclaimed wastewater, storm drain puddles of lawn fertilizer, soapsuds and plastic bags. Encompassing 830 square miles of urban watershed from the San Fernando Valley to the Port of Long Beach, This straightening, deepening and widening, adding the Hansen and Sepulveda Dams and massive flood control reservoirs, enabled the post-war real estate boom to sprawl all over lowland Los Angeles, safe from the seasonal rise in waters.

Moulding new habitats for the biodiversity

Neo Habitat aims to conserve the existing complex habitats and create more diverse habitat complexities for the biodiversity hotspot region of Vishwamitri at the center of Vadodara. It shapes an agglomeration of dynamic landforms to create habitats as well as integrates the insertion of public spaces. The project aims to ellivate species diversity of Vishwamitri.

Each area is divided into 3 parts:

The first part consists of the complex fauna habitats. It involves the modification of floodlines and diversion of the river’s water into the land in accordance with existing low-lying areas of the sites and thereby exaggerating the depth for the land to contain water and creation of biodiversity habitat mounds. The gravel zone inhibits mugger crocodiles, indian soft shell tortoise and smaller organisms. The project uses the flooding nature of Vishwamitri river as an advantage to divert and store water.

The second part consists of forest zone with seasonal trails which act as a buffer between the biodiversity and the public spaces. The third part consists of community zone which includes plazas, amphitheatre, pavillions, markets, recreational ponds, seatings and pathways which would be accessible all year round.

Masterplan - Site selection and Zoning

Neo Habitat Area 01 : Adj. to Sama Talav

Neo Habitat Area 02 : Adj. to Ratri Bazar

Land Acquired

Total length of development: 7km

Total Land Area: 13,72,330 sqm

Neo Habitat Area 01 : Adj. to Sama Talav

River length: 1100 m

Intervention area: 2,15,900 sqm

Proposed Programs:

Forest area

Forest trails

Biodiversity mounds

Grassland Zone

Gravel Zone - includes modified floodlines, shrubs and gravels

Forage orchards

Herb garden

Retention ponds

Flower meadow

Pathways with seatings at plazas

Pavillion

Parking : 5,810 sqm - 350 cars

Vehicular road - 6m

Footfall: 7,420 per hour (2 sqm per person) (6,420 people excluding forest trail)

Green area: 1,89,750 sqm (88%)

Built area: 26,150 sqm (12%)

No. of entrances: 3

Walkway 1: forest trail - 1.5m area: 2,000 sqm

Material: semipermeable concrete tile pavement

Walkway 2 : 4m

Area: 12,530 sqm

Material: Concrete

Elevated Pathway: 2m

Area: 310 sqm

Material: Concrete

Hanuman langur

Asian green bee-eater

Black kite

Black-winged kite

Marsh sandpiper

Common/White-tailed Iora prinia sp. black drongo kingfisher sp.

Purple-rumped Sunbird

Purple Sunbird

Argya/Turdoides sp.

Brown-headed Barbet

Indian Gray Hornbill

Common Tailorbird

Neo Habitat Area 02 : Adj. to Ratri Bazar

River length: 920 m

Intervention area: 4,24,830 sqm

Proposed Programs:

Forest area

Biodiversity mounds

Grassland Zone

Gravel zone - includes modified floodlines, shrubs and gravels

Forage orchards

Retention ponds

Forest trails

Pathways with seatings at plazas

Food Market

Parking : 6,480 sqm - 250 cars

Vehicular road -6m

Footfall: 25,980 per hour (2 sqm per person) (24,540 people excluding forest trail)

Green area: 3,62,306 sqm (85%)

Built area: 62,524 sqm (15%)

No. of entrances: 2

Walkway 1: forest trail - 2m area: 3,420 sqm

Material: semipermeable concrete tile pavement

Walkway 2 : 4m

Area: 39,270 sqm

Material: Concrete

Elevated Pathway: 2m -3m

Area: 9,270 sqm

Material: Concrete

Jungle Babbler

Common Myna

Indian Peafowl

Spotted Dove

Laughing Dove

Greater Coucal

Asian Koel

Common Hawk-Cuckoo

White-breasted Waterhen

Green Bee-eater

Coppersmith Barbet

Rose-ringed Parakeet

Rufous Treepie

Large-billed Crow

Dusky Crag-Martin

Red-vented Bulbul

Rosy Starling

Indian Robin

Oriental Magpie-Robin

Black-winged Stilt

Intermediate Egret

Pied Kingfisher

Little Egret

Common Kingfisher

Shikra

Gray Heron

Eurasian Hoopoe

Wire-tailed Swallow

Reviving ecology along River Vishwamitri

Inside Out explores the idea of transition and connection between the city and River Vishwamitri. The space along the river is occupied by dense vegetation and is inaccessible. The proposal emphasizes on improving the transition between the urban fabric and river. It also aims at improving people’s interaction with water and ecology on various levels. The project focuses on transitory spaces on site which either connect or separate 2 different spaces.

The spaces along the river have been categorized as insides and outsides based on the meanders of the river. The outside spaces are treated as active spaces for human interaction while inside spaces are treated as spaces for interaction with nature. This has been done in order to create a balance between the connection and separation of the water and terrestrial land. The design looks at accessible transitory spaces not only across the river but also at its continuity to convey the different levels of transition. Along with this, it also creates a band of continuous and interlinked network of biodiverse pockets and public spaces along the river edge.

Masterplan - Site selection and Zoning

Interconnecting the

Modifying the native vegetation and creating biodiversity parks.

Zone 1: Plan

1: Sama Talav Series of biodiversity parks to revive the ecology along the river length.

Inside Outside (For human interventions) (Nature oriented) Residential Commercial Edge Slums Institutional Stps Neighbourhood Parks Biodiversity Parks Restricted Area Vacant Land Farmer Markets Biodiversity Parks Public Plaza LEGEND A’ B’ A B 3 1 8 9 2 5 10 11 14 14 14 13 15 12 12 0 m 5 m 15 m 25 m 10 m 20 m Viewing Deck River Biodiversity Park Section at AA’

Constructing a continuous band of street networks, bicycle tracks and pathways to improve movement along the river.

Zone 2: Plan

Section AA’

Restoration of unbalanced river health

Vishwamitri river is a strong support system for the biodiversity thriving around it. Even though it is a nonperennial river, there are elements such as human interferences, water flow changes, and similar genres of vegetation that indicate that the river is a continuous and connected stretch of water. The river’s health is severely poor at many points due to its neglected treatment by the citizens. The aim of this project is to improve river health by altering the physicochemical (water quality), biological (edge condition and land use), and emotional (human experience) aspects.

Through the findings of river health assessment, zones to retain, enhance and modify are formulated and overlapped with the mapped factors affecting the river’s health. Factors such as drains and stormwater contact points, monoculture vegetation with dominant invasive species, and human-crocodile interaction are mapped. Through this process, areas in need of improvement are identified and strategies such as treating surface runoff water where it meets the river, reworking the vegetation palette to make it more dense and diverse, and improving interactions between humans and biodiversity(crocodiles) are followed.

Techniques

Summer+Monsoon -winter section

Zoomed ins

Connection of plaza & elevated walkways

Connection of temple & ghat below bridge

Cleansing Biotope

Submerge

Embracing the monsoon landscape

Flooding has been a historic event in the city of Baroda and is often a feature associated with the river Vishwamitri. With an average rainfall of 1074mm, the city experiences heavy rainfall for about 65 days a year. The city experienced an HFL of 10.68m and 806 cumecs of water in 2005. This shows the city’s need to manage rainwater, storm water and surface run-off in order to reduce the damage caused by flood.

The design imagines incorporating flood as an essential element of the city’s landscape. The project uses this dynamic and site-specific condition of fluctuating water levels to create opportunities for flexible and submersible landscapes by supporting the flood water.

The design focuses on retrofitting three broad strategies- alleviate, attenuate and embrace to manage flood risk and create flood adaptive environments. These three spatial tactics are further broken down into larger tools that help the urban and natural environment to adapt to flooding and reduce its impact.