We have long learned to live with rivers. We’ve settled alongside them, built over them, populated tributaries. Our early coexistence were light and fleeting, structures elevated on stilts, open and porous, never quite permanent. We understood, feared and respected both faces of the river – its nourishing company and its deadly ferocity.
Our relationship with rivers has been extremely heavy handed in recent times – we dam, we divert, we fill at a far greater scale and at frenetic pace. Leaving in our wake, heavily damaged waterways and scarred coastlines, un-healable and irreversible. In the last century, we have moved from co-existence to control.
We propose to leave the river and most of the ground plane untouched. Instead of filling or diverting, we propose to bridge over.This is not a new idea. Human beings have been bridging over waterways and rivers for centuries. We have become quite proficient and efficient at doing so.
Our scheme is simple, it comprises of a series of bridge like structures sitting on piers. Un-invasive and light-footed, the piers leave the river free, free to expand and contract with the tide, free to overflow its banks, free to roam and reconfigure its flow. Uninterrupted, we envision a realm where living beings thrive – water-life, plant-life, animals, birds, insects. We call this ground plane ‘old terra’, the ground (and river) which was there before and continue to be.
The making of buildings requires land on which to build and ground from which to launch structures (blame gravity). So we clear forests, fill lakes and rivers, to create ground, so that we can build. The equation and choice are almost always binary – forests / rivers vs buildings, with no room for both to coexist.
What if ‘land’ can be disassociated from ‘ground’? What if we can create new, artificial ‘grounds’ or Land Bridges (we call this New Terra) which take over the burden of carrying buildings from the ground (Old Terra)?
Our Land Bridges, sitting on piers, are designed as permanent structures, built once, to last a millennia. On them, buildings are constructed, homes and spaces for people, housing human activity and endeavour – the realm of human beings.
Our project explores 2 main themes. Firstly, building with the river and overcoming the compliance and technical challenges of finding ground to build on (riparian reserve, setbacks etc). Secondly, it speculates on the possibility and potential of two systems / realms coexisting alongside (on top of ) one another : old terra and new terra. It does not have to be a zero sum game.
In collaboration with our friends @saladdressing.
