Architectural Design V-IX: Seeland Rivages: New Flood Infrastructures for the Jura Lake Region

Abstract

The Landscape Architecture Studio of Prof. Christophe Girot will design a new landscape project along a stretch of the Zihlkanal that will enable a novel solution to mitigating flooding problems and improving local living conditions.

Objective

We will work on the “Seeland,” a region formed by three lakes at the foothill of the Jura Mountains, once was a floodplain of the Aare River. In the largest water infrastructure project ever attempted in Switzerland, the wetlands were drained and turned into one of the country’s most important farming regions. Recently, however, increased glacial melt and heavier rain events have strained the system, posing an urgent question: When water levels across the Seeland rise, where should the excess flow? The FS 2020 Design Studio will focus on the large scales design through digital point cloud modeling. During the semester, students will learn skills in point cloud, computer modeling, visualisation techniques, and CNC prototyping in several workshops. The Design Studio is organising a two-day workshop field trip to the site (22-23.02.2020 costs 180CHF). The goal of the studio is to develop a landscape design along a stretch of the Zihlkanal which mitigates local flooding problems and enhances the water accumulation structures currently existing in the Seeland. The design work will follow a three-scaled approach: network (large scale), structure (medium scale) and detail (small scale).

Content

The studio is structured into three phases and includes a site visit: PHASE I: DESIGN DEVELOPMENT AND HYPOTHESIS & SITE VISIT In the first part of the semester, the students choose a site-specific strategy for developing a new landscape intervention along a stretch of the Zihlkanal that will enable a novel solution for mitigating flooding problems and contributing to the water accumulation infrastructure of the Seeland. During the first week, the students attend a weekend site visit during which they will have the opportunity to get a better understanding of the site. In a next step, the students create a programme, i.e. they propose concrete measures and design interventions which will allow them to implement their strategy. A studio exercise and guest lectures help the students with developing their strategies and programme. Furthermore, they are introduced to key tools such as 3D scanning and learn to use point clouds to generate topographies for 3D modeling. PHASE II: DESIGN DEVELOPMENT THROUGH MODELING AND ITERATION In the second part of the semester, students will test their topographic interventions through modeling and CNC-milling, and adding a vegetation layer to the designs. PHASE III: PROJECT SYNTHESIS AND VISUALISATION In the third part of the semester, the students focus on the production and visualisation of their designs. The primary tools for this phase are Rhino and Point Cloud modeling.

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