Harvest, Connect and Protect: An Adaptive City Story
Team
Name: Umut Caglar Guney
Nationality: Turkish
Institution / Company: Syracuse University
Name: Anna Korneeva
Nationality: Russian
Institution / Company: Syracuse University
-FINALIST of Waterless World Competition
We imagine tackling multiple challenges our cities face simultaneously through interventions with various functions. Our drawings tell the story of an urban area on a coastal region that faces the ongoing problem of sea level rise and fresh-water scarcity.
One of the primary actors of our intervention is a performative material that is capable of absorbing and retaining rainwater, allowing people to extract fresh water out of it in case of need. Represented in magenta, the material wraps around the blocks to concurrently provide local means of harvesting rainwater and protect the buildings from flooding with a barricading function. The expressive use of the material on public spaces defines parks as performative infrastructure allowing people to acknowledge our dire need for water and celebrate its presence. Bike and walking paths on the roofs provide alternatives for transportation in flooded areas and harvest rainwater for local use.
Our representation underlines an attitude of using a diversity of strategies to introduce new functions, adapt and preserve the built environment through different techniques that construct a functional whole. Regardless of the specific nature of the performative material, our proposal reflects comprehensive architectural strategies to harvest rainwater, celebrate water and adapt to flooding.
#sealevelrise #rainwaterharvesting #largewaterinfrastructureandaccesibility #adaptation #beautification&publicspace
