Architectural Design V-IX: Madagascar Hand Made (Girot)

Abstract

The Landscape Architecture Studio in the Fall 2022 will investigate innovative designs for flood relief in Antananarivo. It will address the peri-urban context of the city that is subject to severe seasonal flooding. The site-specific approach includes modeling of resilient landscape infrastructures to enhance the safety of neighborhoods located on the banks of the Ikopa and Sisaony rivers.

Objective

The goal of this Design Research Studio is to develop design solutions for the flood prone areas of Greater Antananarivo, Madagascar, implementing a resilient landscape infrastructure. Students will learn digital modelling techniques through topological analysis and design. This will enable them to imagine and design precise flood- and food-resilient landscape systems in the urban-agricultural context of Antananarivo. The digital models will be assessed for their performance and feasibility through pluvial simulation models and ecosystem services assessment. Through the use of precise modeling techniques based on laser-scanned data, students will learn to move iteratively towards a final landscape design proposal that will compound topography, infrastructure and vegetation. The studio is part of an ETH Future Cities Laboratory collaboration with researchers and designers from local universities, that will strengthen our knowledge about the broader socio-ecological context of Madagascar. The studio includes a compulsory site visit to Antananarivo for ETH students in the Autumn of 2022.

Content

The capital city of Madagascar, Antananarivo, is a high-altitude city. Urban growth is changing rapidly the traditional landscape of the Merina culture dominated by rice cultivation in the plains, as informal settlements are more and more occupying the rice plain. This uncontrolled growth also increases the demand for local bricks produced from soil mining, degrading the existing agriculture. In addition, there are back-fills that eat away at the capacity of the city to cope with flooding. As a result, the infrastructures coping with floods in the city are no longer adequate. Many canals originally built by rulers for irrigation purposes are now embedded in the urban fabric and have been subverted into open air sewers. The proximity of rice fields with the informal settlements creates added difficulty for farmers to organize irrigation or to cope with city’s effluents on crops. Madagascar is one of the poorest countries in the world. These challenges bring an opportunity to construct a resilient and more sustainable landscape environment for the city, capable of integrating urban growth with measured flood management and sustainable food production. The studio will propose a series of new designs for an agro-urban flood-food landscape adapted to the present situation. The intention would be to develop designs that integrate flood and irrigation management while keeping key benefits that city dwellers get from their local ecosystem. This will be achieved through the enhanced the capabilities of 3D point cloud modelling and design. The design of significant landscape changes in Antananarivo draws from a combination of design and analysis methods to find adaptive solutions. These design tools supported by scientific feedback will initiate an iterative process between capturing, analyzing and visualizing possible futures. The designed landscape scenarios developed by the students will be assessed in their performance and feasibility according to pluvial model simulation and the ecosystem services they provide. New landscape designs will be integrated to flood- and food-resilient scenarios urgently sought by Malagasy society. The studio philosophy is to build on the strengths of the current socio-ecological interactions that exist locally. The studio will aim at bridging design, engineering and science, by promoting novel ways to transform urban landscapes in the context of Antananarivo, providing more resilient habitat for citizens living under severe climate and socio-economic changes with a particular focus on local food production.

Resources