T H E I N T E R N A T I O N A L R E V I E W O F L A N D S C A P E A R C H I T E C T U R E A N D U R B A N D E S I G N

96 Infrastructure
2016

DENMARK NRREPOR T STATION IN COPENH AGEN THE NETHERLANDS HOW TO DESIGN INFR ATEC T URE SWITZERLAND INFR A ST RUC T URE A ND T HE
L A NDSC A PE USA T HE 606 IN C HIC AGO MEXICO WATER M A N AGEMENT IN ME XICO CIT Y GREAT BRITAIN T HE G A RDEN BRIDGE IN LONDON CHINA
THE FUNDA MENTA L S OF LOGISTIC S PORTUGAL WA LK WAY AT THE PAIVA RIVER JAPAN FLOATING AIRPORT URBA NISM ITALY BA LESTR ATE SE A FRONT
IN SICILY SWITZERLAND FOOT PAT H A ND C YC LE WAY BE T WEEN FR A NCE A ND SWIT ZERL A ND THE NETHERLANDS MULTIPLE MODA LIT Y IN EUROPE
96 Infrastructure
2016
DESIGN TANK PHOTO CHARLOTTE SVERDRUP

Enjoying the
outdoors
since 1947
Vestre April Sun
Design: Espen Voll,
vestre.com Tore Borgersen & Michael Olofsson

Tanja Braemer, Editor in Chief
In a globalised world, infrastructure has become
nothing less than a basic and inevitable need.
Elaborate social, technological and traffic net-
works represent the actual manifestations of
our increasingly interwoven lives. Consisting
Hkan Dahlstrm
of systems of limbs and nodes that embody
nations, organisations and peoples multi-level
interconnections across the globe, they are
constantly growing. They represent the three-
dimensional fabric that infuses us with con-
stant and diverse impulses. And these networks
are more than ever before resources of imm-
ense power themselves. Without them, we are
without any exaggeration, nothing.
To refer to infrastructure as an underlying sub-
system that functions as a means of transport-
ing goods and opinions from A to B thus seems
inadequate. Thinking of landscapes and cities,
it is even more necessary to shift how we look
upon infrastructural facilities, i.e. with regard
to the power they have to change the surround-
ing open space. On the one hand Topos 96
focuses on these contextual aspects of infra-
structure and their impact on the public realm.
It adresses the question of how infrastructure
itself can interconnect with the other systems
and professions that create space. And of how
functional infrastructural planning, in the end,
can significantly shape space and its atmo-
sphere. On the other hand, this issue of Topos
draws attention to how every infrastructural
problem is to be seen as a symptom that can
INFRASTRUCTURE EDITORIAL
itself be traced back to fundamental societal
processes of change. This is where Marc Verheijen
comes in (p. 22). He outlines why infrastruc-
ture should be considered in a referential and
contextual manner not least because we
spend billions of euros to make it work properly.
Infrastructure, in his opinion, has the ability to
answer questions which go beyond the one
short-term solution. Verheijen makes a pas-
sionate plea to look at the deeper logic behind
infrastructural challenges.
One example of coherent infrastructural plan-
ning is the newly built Nrreport Station in the
Danish capital Copenhagen (p. 14). A former
chaotic place has transformed into a lively
urban space that emphasises aspects of playful
and natural orientation. The project demon-
strates how infrastructural facilities can con-
tribute to the rejuvination of a neighbourhood
that was known to be a problem area. In his
essay for Topos 96, Kees Christiaanse examines
infrastructural strategies from both the urban
planners and travellers point of view (p. 96).
Apart from its functional and societal facets,
infrastructure has always been an element of
immense fascination. Masses of moving cars,
endless rails to unknown destinations the
romantic attraction of these images is unabated.
It provides us with the certainty of permanent
movement and never-ending change. And this
spirit is capable of spurring infrastructural
planning and its developement as well.
3

Rasmus Hjortshj
14 Nrreport Station, the most chaotic intersection
in Copenhagens city centre has been transformed into
a lively urban space. Sculptural structures guide the
flow of pedestrians and bicycles through the station.
Nelson Garrido
66 The Paiva Walkway in Portugal is situated in one
of the contrys most beautiful and pristine landscapes.
The structure is a gentle intervention that respects the
landscape and promotes sustainable tourism.
4
CIPM/Franco Ban
28 The BGG, an interdisciplinary advisory group for
design, is working on the coherent appearance of the
visible, above-ground effects of the Gotthard axis in
Switzerland to connect infrastructure and landscape.
Mauro Filippi
80 The new promenade at the seafront of Balestrate
in northwestern Sicily consists of few elements and
is built with local materials. The subtle design of the
space enhances the natural features of the site.
Village Underground
60 Shipping containers are symbols of contem-
porary capitalism. They stand for the efficiency of
global logistics systems and can be used for the most
noble purposes as well as for the most cruel ones.
Daniel Kessler
88 A public footpath and cycleway has recently
opened in a border region on the River Rhine. The
new infrastructure opens up a section of the riverbank
that had been inaccessible for the public for decades.
 INFRASTRUCTURE TABLE OF CONTENTS

Cover: resund Bridge L R K E SOP H IE K EIL L AU R A C IP R IAN I

Design: Georg Rotne, i.a.w. engineering rm Arup 14 A Flow through Copenhagen 74 Floating Airports
Photo: Hkan Dahlstrm Lively space: Nrreport Station in Copenhagen Fragile systems: Airports and water

M AR C VER H EIJ EN ST EFAN T ISC H ER , F R A NC E S C A A R I C I

22 Infratecture 80 Sicilian Minimalism
Improving mobility: How to design infratecture Longing for the sea: Balestrate seafront in Sicily

PAL L E P ET ER SEN C L AU DIA M OL L

28 The Idea of Combinare 88 Between Countries
Integrated design: Infrastructure in Switzerland Public crossing: Footpath and cycleway in Switzerland

C ON OR OSH EA K EES C H R IST IAA NS E

36 Owned by the Public 96 Multiple Modality
Connecting element: The 606 in Chicago On the road: Travelling through Europe

K EES L OK M AN
44 Exploring a New Paradigm
New solutions: Water management in Mexico City Currents
06 News, Projects, Competitions
DAVID M ADDEN
52 Designing Against the Public Products
Difficult investment: The Garden Bridge in London 102 Playgrounds

AL EXAN DER G U T Z M ER 110 Authors

60 Living (and Dying) in a Box
Inside the container: Logistics and urbanism 111 Credits/Imprint

VIR IATO SOROM EN H O-M AR QU ES

66 Erotic Slowness
In harmony with nature: A walkway in Portugal

5
CURRENTS EVENTS
EVENTS
Blurred Lines Topos Cities Initiative in Berlin
BA U M E I S T E R TOPOS
INITIATIVE
Partner
What makes urban space acess-
ible? What are the keys to guar-
anteeing that residents and
outside visitors alike will take
ownership of it and use it?
How can green infrastructure
foster maximum openness of
the public realm? And finally:
what can technical innovations
contribute to transform cities
into truly integrative places?
The forum Connective Spaces,
hosted by Topos, the German
architecture magazine Bau-
meister and lighting specialist
Schrder, investigated these
crucial questions, sparking
lively debates between four
participants from very different
backgrounds: landscape archi-
tect Leonard Grosch (Atelier
Loidl, Berlin), architect Jan
Liesegang (Raumlabor, Berlin),
academic expert Undine
Giseke (Technical University
Berlin) and Schrder top man-
ager Ernst Smolka. One con-
clusion, however, they all
agreed on: the success of future
cities depends on the extent to
which existing professions,
more precisely the profession-
als who work in them, are able
to transcend the boundaries of
their disciplines and mind-sets.
6
Alexander Gutzmer
The forum, which took place
during this years Metropolitan
Solutions conference, held in
Berlin, is part of the Baumeis-
ter Topos Cities Initiative: it
was launched in 2015 and
examines a wide range of
aspects of urban design, and
urban planning and develop-
ment, through events and pub-
lications. In 2016, connectivity
is in the centre of the initiatives
attention. When it comes to
connective spaces and inter-
connecting people, one may
first of all think of technical
infrastructure. Dr. Ernst Smolka,
general manager of Schrder
GmbH, pointed out how new
modular technologies such as
Schrders Shuffle can spark a
shift in the way lighting solu-
tions are perceived in urban
contexts: the lumire no longer
functions just as a tool for illu-
minating a space. Instead, it
becomes a complex interactive
instrument that integrates a
variety of highly different func-
tions, which fulfil the kinds of
demands that todays citizens
will increasingly make on pub-
lic spaces and their infrastruc-
ture. Accessibility to public
wifi, provision of electricity
and availability as a security
device are just three examples.
It comes as no surprise then
that great attention is being
paid to the lumires of the
future and whether they are
able to provide the resources
and services that are required
of them by urban dwellers.
In fact, infrastructure is just
one angle from which to view
the concept of connectivity.
Leonard Grosch, partner at
Atelier Loidl Landscape Archi-
tecture, Berlin, explained how
modern metropolitan parks
such as Atelier Loidls Park am
Gleisdreieck in Berlin seek to
bring together people from
many different cultures and
backgrounds in a subtly mod-
ern and contemporary way
and how that central goal influ-
ences a designer during their
planning. He stressed the fact
that the elaborate participatory
process that preceded and
accompanied the planning
phase for Gleisdreieck enabled
the landscape architects to bet-
ter understand what this space
that was to become a park
actually meant to people. Even
if discussions easily frayed into effects on urban culture in both
detail issues and even if many
of the participants clang to the
romantic railway scenarios that
once characterized the Gleis-
dreieck area, Grosch insisted
that the participation of citi-
zens and other stakeholders
will significantly inform a
places design for the better. For
in the course of this process,
designers and landscape archi-
tects are required to balance
the demands of the public, the
aesthetic qualities of the space,
and its potential in terms of
urban connections and sur-
roundings. Jan Liesegang,
architect at Raumlabor Berlin,
would surely agree here.
Together with Undine Giseke,
Professor for Landscape Archi-
tecture and Open Space Plan-
ning at TU Berlin, he debated
the question of when exactly
participation should come into
the planning process. They both
emphasized that an early start-
ing point facilitates mutual un-
derstanding and trust between
designers and future users.
Asked whether citizens nowa-
days are ready to actively sup-
port and influence spatial
change processes, Giseke and
Liesegang came to the same
conclusion: citizens are more
willing to participate than ever
before. In fact, Liesegang and
Giseke believe that architects
and landscape architects should
work together as closely as pos-
sible and alongside manufactur-
ers and construction companies
that develop connective solu-
tions. Not only in order to find
adequate products for such so-
lutions but also to gauge their
the short and the long term.
Liesegang, Giseke, Grosch and
Smolka share the conviction
that the more professionals sus-
pend the divides that separate
their professional fields and in-
stead clear the way for new
combinations of expertise and
creativity, the more integrative
the future city will become. And
the more people will benefit
from this evolution.
Tanja Braemer
 COMPETITIONS PROJECTS CURRENTS

COMPETITIONS PROJECTS

The Hills on Governors Island, New York City,

United States
In July, the park extension The Hills on Governors Island, New
York, opened to the public one year earlier than expected.
Thanks to an unseasonably warm fall and rigorous construction
management, we can complete and open the Hills to the public in
2016 instead of next year, said Leslie Koch, president of The Trust
for Governors Island. The Hills are the culmination of the award-
winning Governors Island Park and Public Space Master Plan,
designed by landscape architects, West 8. Released in 2010, the park
master plan sets the stage for the islands future redevelopment while
ensuring quality public open space. The first 30 acres of new park
and public space opened to the public in 2014. Made of recycled
MLA, OMA

construction debris and clean fill material, the parks four hills rise
25 to 70 feet above the island. The summit of Outlook Hill provides
visitors with a 360-degree panorama of the Statue of Liberty, New
OMA, Mia Lehrer + Associates and IDEO won the competition for the new York Harbor and the Lower Manhattan skyline. Four hills structure
FAB Civic Center Park in downtown Los Angeles. The design aims to be low the park: Outlook Hill, Slide Hill (featuring the longest slide in New
maintenance, with on-site storm water capture to reduce the need for water. York City), Discovery Hill (featuring a site-specific sculpture by
Rachel Whiteread) and Grassy Hill, which overlooks the islands
new and historic landscapes and the Manhattan skyline. The
FAB Civic Center Park, Los Angeles, United States 2.2-mile-long promenade around the edge of the island also re-
opened after the four-year-building process was completed. The
Los Angeles downtown will soon have a new public park. Hills has ten acres of green space, new pedestrian paths and more
The Architecture practice OMA, landscape architects Mia than 860 new trees. The Trust and the planners hope that this proj-
Leher + Associates and the design firm IDEO won the com- ect will be a new must-see for tourists and residents alike and is
petition for the FAB Civic Center Park, named after the loca- working to turn the island into a year-round destination.
tion a vacant lot situated at First and Broadway street.
Prominent buildings adjacent to the park include the Los Laura Klser
Angeles Supreme Court, the City Hall, the Federal Court-
house and the LAPD Headquarters. The planners objective
is to have workers, residents and tourists all use the park.
The extensive system of low seat walls will create an undulat-
ing ribbon of informal seating and shaded areas that define a
series of park rooms for intimate gatherings and spaces for
art and cultural programming. Larger capacity amphitheatre
seating integrated into the restaurant is available for watch-
ing performances on the main plaza. The building in the
park will feature a split-level restaurant and an array of
sculpted shade canopies that also produce solar energy.
OMAs design of the parks restaurant is made to create a
diverse set of protected outdoor spaces, a main dining area
with a vista over the park and an edible roof garden that
Timothy Schenk

reflects the parks playful landscape. The design aims to be

low maintenance, with on-site storm water capture to reduce
the need for water. The architects will also use local plants.
The park is anticipated to open to the public in 2019.
The Hills on Governors Island opened to the public a year earlier than expec-
Laura Klser ted. The park offers a new view of Manhattan and the Statue of Liberty.

7
CURRENTS PROJECTS
This years Serpentine Pavilion was
created by the Bjarke Ingels Group
and is, for the first time, accompa-
nied by four Summer Houses.
Serpentine Gallery and Summer Houses, London, United Kingdom
Each year internationally renowned architects are invited to design
the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion in Londons Kensington Gardens.
The Bjarke Ingels Group created the 2016 Pavilion. The planners
aimed to create a structure that embodies multiple aspects often
perceived as opposites: modular yet sculptural, and transparent yet
opaque. The Pavilion consists of fibreglass forms that are like bricks.
They form a wall that splits up into a cave and hosts the events of
the Gallerys Park Nights programme. Four Summer Houses
designed by different architects accompany the Serpentine Pavilion
this year. They are all inspired by Queen Carolines Temple, a classi-
cal-style summer house built in 1734, close to the Serpentine Gal-
lery. Nigerian architect Kunl Adeyemi designed an inverse replica
of the Temple a tribute to its robust form, space and material. Ger-
man architects Barkow Leibinger were inspired by another 18th
8
Iwan Baan
century pavilion by William Kent that rotates and offers 360 views.
Their Summer House is conceived as a series of undulating struc-
tural bands. 93-year-old architect Yona Friedman created a modular
structure that can be assembled and disassembled in different for-
mations. It refers to his project Ville Spatiale begun in the late
1950s. Asif Khan was inspired by the fact that Queen Carolines
Temple was positioned in a way to catch the sunlight from the Ser-
pentine lake. The Serpentine Architecture Programme invites archi-
tects to create their first built structure in England. The process is
immediate, with a maximum of six months from invitation to com-
pletion. The very first pavilion was designed by Zaha Hadid; other
famous architects involved were Daniel Libeskind and Frank Gehry.
Laura Klser
 Children need to play to nd the right approach to life. For children, playing does not always
mean doing something active. Playing might just as well mean being there.

Richter Spielgerte GmbH www.richter-spielgeraete.de

...our product designation for the European Market

CURRENTS AWARDS
AWARDS
This years award winners of the
European Prize for Urban Public
Space: The irrigation system for the
thermal allotments in Caldes de
Montbui, Spain, by Marta Serra, Elena
Albareda and Jordi Calbet (above),
and the Przelomy Centre for Dia-
logue at Solidarnosc Square in Szc-
zecin, Poland by Robert Konieczny.
9th European Prize for Urban Public Space awarded
Two very different projects
have shared this years European
Prize for Urban Public Space:
the Przeomy Centre for Dia-
logue at Solidarnosc Square in,
Poland by Robert Konieczny
and the Recovery of the Irriga-
tion System at the Thermal
Orchards located on the edge
of the town of Caldes de Mont-
bui in Spain, by Marta Serra,
Elena Albareda and Jordi Cal-
bet. Both projects fulfil the
prizes goal in particularly
10
successful ways: They open up
and revitalise previously
unused public space. Every
two years a jury of architects
and critics comes together to
typically select two prize win-
ners and several Special Men-
tions from the 25 finalists.
The Przeomy Centre for Dia-
logues underground structure,
which among other things will
be used for exhibitions about
the history of Szczecin, has an
inclined urban plaza on its
roof. The successful interplay have always been irrigated with
of architecture and open space water from the Roman thermal
thus fills an urban planning springs located there. Due to a
and historical gap in the citys construction boom and conse-
centre while creating a new quent discharge of waste water
and vibrant public plaza that at the end of the 20th century,
allows for a variety of uses. however, the irrigation system
In the Spanish town of Caldes fell into decline and cultivation
de Montbui a dilapidated cul- of the orchards was discontin-
tural landscape was developed ued. A restoration of the irriga-
into a publicly accessible space tion system linked to a redevel-
where the towns residents are opment of the infrastructure
able to experience nature first- system via a variety of bridges
hand. The orchards in Caldes and walkways lead to the com-
plete renovation of the canal
system within a period of two
and a half years.
With the help of fruit growers
and architects, a basin for the
purification of polluted water
was built and previously pri-
vate parcels of land were made
publicly accessible through the
construction of a bridge over
the main canal.
In addition to the two prizes
the jury also awarded four
special mentions. These were
awarded to the following proj-
European Prize 1, Adria Goula
ects: the Barkingside Town
Centre Improvements in Lon-
don, United Kingdom; the
Multipurpose Hall in Molen-
beek-Saint-Jean, Belgium; The
Ring of Memory: International
Memorial of Notre-Dame-de-
Lorette in Ablain-Saint-Nazaire,
France; and The Garden of the
Heavenly Hundred in Kiev,
Russia.
A special recognition was
awarded to the city of Copen-
European Prize 2, Jaroslaw Syrek
hagen in acknowledgment of
its public policies for improv-
ing the quality of life in public
open space.
Tanja Gallenmller

REVIEWS
Infratecture
Bridges and promenades,
crossings and streets infra-
structure is all around us. It is
the fabric that holds our glo-
balised world together. Mostly
regarded as a pure necessity
and solely designed as a func-
tional element, infrastructure
can be much more than simply
making places accessible. It can
be an integral part of our land-
scapes and cities that combines
engineering with urban plan-
ning and architecture with
landscape architecture. Or at
least this is the opinion of
author Marc Verheijen (see
article, page 22).
Verheijen was trained in two
disciplines: He studied both
engineering and architecture.
Having this specific back-
ground, he worked for the
internationally renowned
architecture firm OMA in
Rotterdam before joining the
Department of the municipality
of Rotterdam. In his book
Infratecture he gives us an
insight into his idea of infra-
structure that adds social, cul-
tural, ecological and economic
aspects to its design, instead of
being entirely focused on func-
tionality. Verheijen defines this
REVIEWS CURRENTS
Custom
is Standard
at Berliner.
www.berliner-seilfabrik.com
New ue
a t a l og
C ow
out n er-
berlin
info@ m
rik.co
seilfab
new approach as infratecture,
a combination of infrastructure
and architecture.
After an introduction and
three chapters about the design
of infrastructure, its history
and an explanation of the spe-
cific philosophy of infratecture,
the book continues with so-
called cases. These cases are
divided into different typolo-
gies upon which infrastructure
is based: bridges, streets, deci-
sion points, infrabuildings,
fencing and even roadside bio-
topes. Using a range of 15
infrastructural elements, the
author presents 30 examples
where the idea of infratecture
was actually used be it the
resund Bridge that connects
Denmark with Sweden or a
new type of noise barrier in the
Netherlands. The structure of
the book forms a practice-
based guide that helps planners
develop new concepts. It has a
universal approach and can be
a useful source of inspiration
for engineers, urban planners,
architects and landscape archi-
tects or infratects as Marc
Verheijen would say.
Alexander Russ
CURRENTS REVIEWS
Approaches to the
Landscape
Every landscape architect
knows his or her field of
work the landscape. They
generally approach various
projects from different per-
spectives, and in doing so
focus their views on the con-
text. In addition to a practi-
cal examination, a theoreti-
cal approach to the concept
of landscape and the tasks of
landscape architecture can
also be worthwhile. This is
also indispensable for a pro-
fession which constantly
complains about a lack of
theory. Three current publi-
cations now offer rewarding
insights into this issue.
Is Landscape?
The collection of essays enti-
tled Is Landscape...? Essays on
the Identity of Landscape
edited by Gareth Doherty and
Charles Waldheim explores
the multiple definitions of
landscape. The books starting
point is Garret Eckbos rhe-
torical question Is landscape
architecture?, which he
asked in an essay published
in 1983 aimed at clarifying
the relationship between
landscape architecture and
architecture and discussing
its potential. A series of rhe-
torical questions asked by
well-known authors describe
the relationship between
landscape architecture and its
closely related disciplines and
other cultural fields. In doing
so, they sharpen the focus on
landscape and landscape archi-
tecture. In Is Landscape Liter-
ature? Gareth Doherty traces
the influence landscape has
had on the written word. At
the same time he addresses
the question of how literature
influences the built environ-
ment. In Is Landscape Gar-
12
dening? Udo Weilacher argues
for more garden thinking in
landscape architectural prac-
tice. Nina-Marie Lister expl-
ores the interrelations bet-
ween ecology and landscape
and the affect they have on
design, research and practice.
Frederick Steiner discusses
the interrelationships bet-
ween landscape and plan-
ning. Pierre Blanger looks at
landscape and infrastructure.
And of course history, dis-
cussed by John Dixon Hunt,
and theory, explained by
Rachael Delue, cannot be
omitted and are both addres-
sed here. Charles Waldheim
examines the topic of Is Land-
scape Urbanism? and also
looks at the contribution
landscape architectural prac-
tice makes with regard to
urban design and planning.
What is Landscape?
John R. Stilgoe addresses this
question in his book of the
same title. The Orchard Pro-
fessor in the History of Land-
scape at Harvard University
not only investigates the
meaning and change in mean-
ing of the word landscape,
which has its origins in Old
Frisian. In the chapters Mak-
ing and Constructs through
Stead and Farm up to Field
and Away, numerous terms
are worked out in detail and
their cultural context explored.
For non-native speakers the
explanations about the subtle
differences in vocabulary are
at times a challenge. In addi-
tion to the authors interesting
remarks about landscape his-
tory, the etymological devel-
opment of certain terms and
his skilful transition between
different cultures, the book
is first and foremost an invi-
tation to go through the
world with open eyes, to
observe ones surroundings,
to read the landscape and to
continuously question the
context of things. Noting
that the book is not a field
guide, Stilgoe ultimately
sends his readers out to
explore the landscape: Close
it now, put it down, and go.
Landscape as Urbanism. A
General Theory
Waldheim didnt just contrib-
ute an essay to the publication
Is Landscape ?, however. In
the book Landscape as Urban-
ism. A General Theory he also
takes an in-depth look at
landscape as being a model
and medium for the contem-
porary city. In a series of
engaging essays he explains
the contribution landscape
and landscape architecture
has made to current issues
surrounding urban planning
and acute urban questions. A
profound overview is thus
provided, which gives ample
background information
about a discourse of landscape
urbanism that has enriched
the theoretical investigation
about the professions self
image since the 1990s.
In the introduction to Is
Landscape? the great land-
scape theoretician J.B. Jackson
is quoted: Why is it, I won-
der, that we have trouble
agreeing on the meaning of
landscape? The word is simple
enough, and it refers to some-
thing which we think we
understand; and yet to each of
us it seems to mean some-
thing different. These three
publications help to promote
a common understanding of
the issue. Although we are
given no definitive answers
here, the books provide suffi-
cient motivation to question
ones own views and to think a
step further about landscape
Peter Zch
 #ASLA2016

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A ow through
Copenhagen
The most chaotic intersection and station in Copenhagens city center has trans-
formed into a lively urban space. With modern sculptural building structures to
guide the massive flow of pedestrians and bicycles through the station, a new
atmosphere and mobility have emerged in a formerly dull and disorienting area.

Nrreport Station is the busiest trafc terminal in Copenha-

gen with access to S-Trains, local trains and the metro.

14
15
NRREPORT STATION, COPENHAGEN, DENMARK
Client: The City of Copenhagen, the State Railway
Architects: Cobe, Gottlieb Paludan Architects
Year of construction: 2015

16
Nrreport Station is the busiest traffic terminal in
Copenhagen, with more than 250,000 people
passing through it every day. The station is geo-
graphically located between the old medieval city
and the boroughs of Vesterbro, Nrrebro and
sterbro, with borders reflected in the infrastruc-
ture of the Danish capital. Where the S-train line
runs through the city, it marks the location of the
old ramparts of Copenhagen; along these ram-
parts were several gates that served as entrances
to the city, one of them being the northern gate,
from which the name Nrreport evolved. The sta-
tion has, over time, transformed from one for
local trains alone to the only central station with
access to underground S-trains, regional trains,
and the Metro, as well as an above-ground bus
terminal. It had become a chaotic and isolated
island between veins of heavy traffic, making it an
uneasy place for pedestrians and bicycles.
Shaped by pedestrians
With a political wish for more open and accessible
infrastructure, a large competition was initiated by
the City of Copenhagen in 2009, with Cobe and
Gottlieb Paludan Architects forming the winning
team. The competition brief required a remodel-
ling of the area above ground, and focused on
rethinking the city gate as the link between the
old medieval city and the boroughs to create a
modern traffic terminal with a new urban space
connected to it. With the City of Copenhagens
vision for a better urban life and its investment in
democratic and sustainable mobility, it was there-
fore essential that Nrreport become a place ded-
icated to pedestrians and bicycles. Cobe and
Gottlieb Paludan Architects mapped out pedes-
trian flows, and actively incorporated these into
the final design of the new Nrreport. By register-
ing how people moved across the old Nrreport
to and from staircases, from adjacent streets and
at pedestrian crossings a soft-shaped plan
emerged. The designs main functions were placed
in areas where people were less likely to walk. More than 250,000 people pass through the station every
Combined with the surrounding infrastructure, day. Its design was inspired by pedestrian ows.
the final plan resulted in an archipelago of soft
organic shapes, with passing pedestrians and Page 18: Nrreport Station was designed as a place that
bicycles almost acting as water streaming in functions for pedestrians and bycicles alike.
between. In this way, Cobe and Gottlieb Paludan
Architects have created an urban space with a nat-
ural infrastructure for pedestrians and bicycles,
and solved the pre-existing problem of a chaotic
and interrupted way of moving.
Navigating through Nrreport
The station is not marked by a single significant
monument or building, but by several almost
floating roofs that slowly appear in the urban
landscape as large canopies along the old city
border. The roofs rest on round, transparent glass
pavilions that house the main station facilities
such as kiosks and ticket-vending machines.
Gathered under white concrete roofs are
entrances to the underground platforms, public
toilets, elevators shafts, and bicycle parking. The
six pavilions create a curved way of moving
throughout the station, with islands of bicycle
parking and chimneys from the underground
stations located directly on a large, unifying sur-
face. With the canopy roofs, these elements act as
volumes to easily guide a visitor in and out. The
area is closed to traffic on the east side, linking
the station directly with the pedestrianized shop-
ping street Frederiksborggade. Cobe and Gottlieb
Paludan Architects have created a unifying sur-
face that provides a foothold for the buildings
along Nrre Voldgade on the east side, buildings
that before were hidden away in the visual noise
of station traffic. The surface provides new out-
door serving opportunities for restaurants and
cafs, and is a compelling way to merge the infra-
structure with surrounding activities at the same
time that it secures a mixed use of the station
area. The roofs, bicycle parking, and chimneys are
repeated along the entire square, creating a f
17
18
19
20
rhythmic regularity and shaping a variety of
urban spaces. The unifying surface, a 3-by-3-
metre grid system, organizes the interior of the
station, benches, bins, and the pillars of the roofs.
The grid also works as a navigation system for
visually handicapped people, and as water drain-
age. Almost every element at the station is organ-
ically shaped, eliminating backsides and corners.
The infrastructure of bicycles
One of the biggest challenges of Nrreport is the
20,000 bicycles passing through every day, 2,100
of which park at the station. The bicycle culture in
Copenhagen often results in bicycle parking
dominating the urban space, sometimes making
it impossible to have active fronts at shops and
restaurants. The lack of proper parking space
often blocks an optimal system of movement.
Cobe and Gottlieb Paludan Architects have
solved this problem in a simple and elegant way
by creating so-called bicycle beds. As if the con-
crete roofs were directly lifted up from the
ground, sunken footprints make room for all
bicycles at the station. The beds are sunken 40
centimetres, making it easier to look over and
find your bicycle; it also creates a clear hierarchy
between pedestrians and bicycles, with bicycles
no longer in eyesight, leaving an unobstructed
view across the station. At Nrreport, the parked
bicycles almost become monuments a symbol
of the Copenhagen bicycle culture.
Around 150,000 passengers use the large
underground network of trains and Metro at
Nrreport Station every day. The underground
station consists of two separate platforms, one for
the S-train lines and one for the regional lines, a
shared staircase from street level the only connec-
tion between them. Cobe and Gottlieb Paludan
Architects have dissolved the overcrowded stair-
cases to and from the underground network. By
keeping a good distance between entrances and
surrounding elements, commuters can now easily
move into the large open space instead of block- Page 19: The station is located between the old medieval city
ing the entrances and the flow. The Metro runs and the boroughs of Vesterbro, Nrrebro and sterbro.
one level further down, and can be accessed from
street level as well as from the train platforms. 20,000 bicycles pass through the station every day. The new
The underground station seems small compared design offers parking space for 2,100 bycicles.
to other large traffic terminals. As with above
ground, it lacks a central meeting place, main hall,
or waiting area. As soon as a visitor enters, he is
on her way in any given direction. The under-
ground network of train lines copies the above-
ground street system, with S-train and regional
train lines running along Nrre Voldgade/Vester
Voldgade, and the Metro line running perpendic-
ular two levels down along Frederiksborggade.
All station facilities are located above ground,
leaving the underground clear for as seamless a
transit as possible to and from the busy Nrreport.
More than a station
The need for a new and improved station was
also a need for a merged urban space in an area
with poor connectivity. Nrreport and the adja-
cent areas were worn, heavily trafficked, and in
some places almost deserted. Now Nrreport Sta-
tion not only connects Copenhagen to the rest of
Denmark by public transport, but its new above-
ground square and buildings link urban areas of
commerce and cultural sights. The station runs
along Nrre Voldgade and Vester Voldgade, north
to south, connecting the entrances to three large
parks, rstedparken, Kings Garden, and the
Botanical Garden. The lateral axis, east-west, con-
nects the newly transformed Israels Plads, the
much-frequented market halls Torvehallerne,
and the renovated pedestrian commerce street
Frederiksborggade/Kbmagergade on both sides
of the station. Urban life, passenger flow, trans-
parency, and accessibility were the keywords in
reinterpreting the design. The result is an inviting
urban square coexisting with the busiest transit
hub in Copenhagen, a place that emphasises the
Copenhagen atmosphere and pulse.
21
22
Marc Verheijen

Infratecture
Are you mobile? Probably, you are. Cycling to work, meeting
friends, getting your groceries. Moving by planes, trains, and
automobiles. Infrastructure is such an integral part of our daily
life, our culture, and our being, it should be conceived of far
beyond the functional. The idea of infratecture is a plea for
embracing complexity and a quest for social values besides
simple usage. A plea for the integral design of infrastructure.

In his book Infratecture (see page 11) Marc Verheijen introduces intergral designs like the
resund Bridge that enables a direct connection between Denmark and Sweden.

23
170 houses form a soundproof element at a motorway in the
Netherlands. It is 700 metres long and 14 metres high.
The Elfenbaan, another motorway in the Netherlands, was
designed as an integral zone with an ecological corridor.
Moving is essential to us for our reproduction,
trade, and social exchange. The places where we
live have usually originated at crossings of trade
routes over water and over land, at mountain
passes, around train stations, at fords or in del-
tas. All of these are natural or created meeting
places, where it has been relatively easy to travel
or where different routes converged. Our mobil-
ity these days is tremendous, and in order to be
this mobile, we use many different infrastruc-
tures on a daily basis. We have a historically
grown system of networks at our disposal. Our
society is based on these global systems and
networks of infrastructure universal and
generic in one respect, local and specific in
another. By car, you can get to almost every
address in the world. By train, you can travel
from station to station quickly and comfortably.
The strategic positioning of airports allows us to
travel to a different continent in a matter of hours.
A foundation of society
Infrastructure is a given part of our everyday
environment. It is the physical basis of modern
societies, the foundation on which we travel,
meet each other, make exchanges, and have new
experiences. All of us use multiple parts of our
extensive infrastructure network every day, but
hardly any of us know who actually owns this
infrastructure, who maintains it, who finances it,
who designs it, or who makes decisions about it.
Still, infrastructure has been devised by the
human brain, and has been realized by people
spending a lot of money and energy in doing so.
Every part, every extension, and every adjust-
ment has been devised, designed, planned, and
made. The true nature of it, however, is rarely
scrutinized. Countries such as Germany and
France spend over 16 billion euros a year on the
construction and maintenance of their national
infrastructure. The resundsbron, connecting
Denmark and Sweden, cost over four billion
24
euros to build. Worldwide yearly investments in
infrastructure concern sums of money most of us
cannot even fathom. Besides money, we as a
society spend much energy and manpower on
infrastructure. Millions of people across the
globe work in the world of infrastructure. Most
of their work is about making sure existing infra-
structure functions well every day. Think of road
works, but also of traffic control and snow-
ploughs. Only a small percentage of these people
work on the realization of new infrastructure,
such as contractors, civil engineers, and railway
companies. An even smaller percentage of all
people working in the world of infrastructure
design infrastructure. So, a small and select
group of civil engineers, architects, landscape
architects, urban designers, and traffic engineers
determine what our infrastructure looks like.
Societal problems
The importance of infrastructure is reason
enough to take infrastructure design serious. In
its most basic form, design is the art of creating
a solution for a specific problem. Designing can
be as simple as that. There is a question, and a
designer comes up with an answer in the form of
a sketched image of the future. But is that it? Lim-
iting the answer to a satisfactory result for the
designer and the client might suffice for the short
term, but from a sustainability perspective, we
would not be making the most of our chances.
For behind a concrete question, there is often a
larger, societal problem. A typical infrastructural
project seems to be about a road from A to B, but
the reason for the project can generally be traced
back to social needs and developments in plan-
ning. The reality is so much more complex,
requiring more attention, expertise, and energy.
Global developments with an influence on the
local level, such as urban growth and rural
depopulation, change mobility patterns. Cities
become more crowded, streets become busier. It
becomes increasingly difficult to find a parking
space. Cyclists have to pay more attention and
drivers have no choice but to be patient. These
are gradual transitions. They seem to evolve
without a system or deeper logic behind them. So
preceding an actual design, there is often a pro-
cess of years, if not decades, in which diverging
demands, expectations, and even desires come
together. Designing therefore starts at a much
earlier point than the project assignment itself.
To be able to design alternatives for a future as yet
unknown, it is essential to understand these
developments. This is no different for infrastruc-
ture than it is for urban design, architecture, or
landscape architecture. All of these involve spa-
tial designs: a three-dimensional proposition
within an existing context. Even a road, no mat-
ter how flat and straight, has to be thought up in
three dimensions. And since a road has to func-
tion for a long time, the factor of time itself, the
fourth dimension, also plays an important role.
The idea of Infratecture
Infratecture is an invitation to think in possi-
bilities rather than in solutions. Designing can
then be much more about exploring possible
alternatives for the future. Early choices for a
certain direction based on first insights and
ideas will speed up the design process, but carry
the risk of depriving many qualities from being
discovered. Thinking a direction through leads
to new insights and knowledge, which may well
lead to different choices, or even different direc-
tions. The design process should therefore not be
considered a linear but a cyclic process. A cyclic
process provides room for the re-evaluation of
design directions after deep assessments have
been made, and for new choices based on this
knowledge. And that is the essence of design:
choices. More than anything, to design is to
make choices. This might seem to contradict the
ambition to keep our options open, but merely
25
26

keeping options open will not change the infra-
structure. For in the design process, design deci-
sions will have to be made (choices) to eventually
arrive at designs that can be realized and thus
make the difference. This cyclic thinking is char-
acteristic for designers, and it sets them apart
from many technicians and specialists. At some
points, designers keep working on a specific part
of a larger assignment, while at other points they
will focus on the overall picture. One of the most
important qualities of a so-called infratect is
the ability to think on different scales.
A convincing example
A perfect example of this approach lies with the
Graafseweg in the Dutch village of Alverna. The
increase in traffic through the years has created a
conflict between the flow of traffic and the quality
of life. The government decided to do something
about noise pollution. The first option was to
place a three-metre-high noise barrier on each
side of the road, a simple and effective element
that could be realized quickly and at relatively
low cost. Despite the fact that such noise barriers
would be the ideal solution from a functional
point of view, the residents were very much
opposed to this solution. They feared the barriers
would become filthy, that they would block their
views, decrease the value of their houses, and
have an adverse effect on Alvernas rural charac-
ter, as the barriers would split the village into two
halves both spatially and visually. At the initiative
of the residents, professional designers of Topia
explored alternative options by design. The goal
was clear: reduce the noise pollution. How this
would have to be achieved, however, was open
and this was what the participation process was
for. In this design process, much attention was
given to aspects such as spatial quality, views,
identity, and quality of life. The designers did not
think in standard solutions, but looked for a
combination of quality-enhancing measures.
Eventually, a combination of smart solutions
resulted in a spatial design that reduced the noise
and created a spatial image everyone was happy
with. What makes the Alverna solution unique is
the combination of measures that have inge-
niously been amalgamated into one whole. One
measure was to sink the road by half a metre. The
dug-up soil was used to realize low mounds on
both sides of the road. On the side of the road,
the barriers were fitted with sound-absorbing
materials, while on the side of the houses, they
were planted with a rich mix of flowers and
grasses. Because of the combination of the sunken
road and the earthen barriers, residents can only
see the roofs of tall vehicles from their houses, so
their view has actually improved. Now, the resi-
dents hardly see the cars anymore, and they have
beautiful flowers in front of their houses while
they can still see the houses across the street. Fur-
thermore, special quiet asphalt was used for the
road, and in addition to these physical measures
the speed limit was reduced.
Finesse
This way of designing requires courage. Staying
on course with so many variables, expectations,
interests and requirements is not easy. Knowing
when enough is enough. At what point do you
have to make choices and present these to the
stakeholders? This requires finesse, intuition,
and experience. This complexity also requires
interdisciplinarity. The problems we face
require the expertise of people from various dis-
ciplines, not only spatial design disciplines such
as traffic engineering, civil engineering, geo-
technology, and construction. We must add
planning, economy, sociology, and other disci-
plines, and it is clear that positioning infrastruc-
tural questions and approaching these as social
matters is no sinecure. To make matters even
more complex (and interesting), the designer
must also enter into dialogue with interest
A large and empty roundabout in the Netherlands is getting
a distinct identity through artwork a revolving house.
In the Dutch village of Averna, the road was sunk by half a
metre. The low mounds were used to reduce sound pollution.
groups, residents, users, investors, administra-
tors, and other stakeholders. Social positioning
of infrastructural questions means designers
must also define their position in the social
debate; it means they have to admit irrationality
and emotion. The Channel Tunnel between the
United Kingdom and France is obviously an
object made of concrete and steel. But the his-
torical and cultural impact of this tunnel on the
regions it connected was enormous. Besides the
functional requirements, these factors also
played an important role in the design process.
And rightly so, because this new connection
also meant new positions within Europe for the
regions on either end of the tunnel.
Creating Conditions
Infratecture is the insight that with the realiza-
tion of an infrastructure project, one can achieve
more than just a solution to a specific functional
problem. With infrastructure, we create the con-
ditions for our way of life, including all potentially
positive and negative aspects. Approached in this
way, infrastructure is the development of a realiz-
able proposal that naturally also meets the design
brief. The extra quality that infratecture adds is
social value, value beyond the functional, value
beyond design briefs, even value beyond the level
of expectations of the stakeholders. Good infra-
structure has current value as well as future
value. Infratecture answers current questions,
creates conditions for future and as of yet unfore-
seeable developments. A plea for embracing
complexity. A plea for the integral design of
infrastructure. Integral means looking at a prob-
lem from different perspectives, getting to the
bottom of it, and striving for a comprehensive
approach, analysis, and design. It stands for the
development of solutions from which nothing is
missing; for constant changes of perspective
enabling a complete study of the problem and the
inclusion of all interests and aspects.
27
Palle Petersen

The Idea of
COMBINARE
The new Swiss Gotthard Axis forms a relationship between infrastructure, architecture and landscape archi-
tecture. For over 20 years an interdisciplinary group has helped design of all of this transalpine flat routes
visible parts. The group has developed integrated solutions, thus creating a coherent appearance.

In 1882 the legendary Gotthard Railway Tun-
nel opened. Even today travel through the spi-
ral tunnel on a train impressively shows how
the Swiss opened up the Alpine region with
this transport connection. The conquest of the
Alps, which had taken Hannibal months to do
in 218 BC and still took traders weeks before
the tunnel, was now reduced to half a day
thanks to the railway. A double track system,
electrification and faster rolling stock resulted
in a journey of four and a half hours by 1970.
But not much else happened after this. In June
of 2016, however, a leap in speed occurred: The
Gotthard Base Tunnel was opened. And when
the new Ceneri Base Tunnel is opened in 2020,
an additional centennial project will have been
completed. The Gotthard Axis of the New
Railway Link through the Alps (NEAT) is part
of the European high-speed network and is
intended to shift heavy traffic on the north-
south axis from road to rail. Even though there
are several missing links between Rotterdam
and Genoa, the heart of NEAT is beating
steadily. This greatly improves passenger
transport as well. During the 95-minute trip
from Zurich to Lugano, however, passengers
have little time to see the fascination of this
pioneering achievement. Along the 57- and
15-kilometre-long basis tunnels and the two
additional ones in opencast mines there are
few places with a view. The trip takes place in
the dark. This makes the outstanding archi-
tectural quality and coherent appearance of
the visible above-ground effects of the Got-
thard axis all the more important. These were
the declared objectives of the interdisciplinary
Advisory Group for Design (BGG), founded in
1993. The fact that this group has been work-
ing on the project for over twenty years hap-
pened purely by chance. In 1992 engineer
Peter Zuber went to an exhibition about the
Ticino architect Rino Tami. Zuber, the Swiss
Federal Railways (SBB) delegate for the Got-
thard axis, was impressed by work Tami had
carried out on the A2 motorway (Gotthard
route) in the 1960s. He decided to form the
BGG under the chairmanship of Uli Huber.
On board were also the Zurich architects

28
 Most of the Gotthard Base
Tunnel is underground, but
several large-scale infra-
structure elements along
the route reveal its exis-
tence. These are examples
of the successful integration
of architecture, infrastruc-
ture and landscape.

29
Pierre Feddersen, Rainer Klostermann, Pascal
Sigrist and Flora Ruchat, who at that time was
head of the architecture department at the
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich
(ETH) and a designer of the A16 motorway
(Transjurane). The well-known bridge builder
Christian Menn worked as a consulting engi-
neer until 2006 and various engineers includ-
ing Peter Zbinden, Walter Schneebeli and Alex
Regli also represented the SBB over the years.
AlpTransit Gotthard Ltd
The BGG coordinates all the visible temporary
and permanent impacts of the Gotthard axis
between Litti near Baar and Lugano. They
30
develop design specifications and details for
various types of buildings, use sketches and
models to construct both entire parts of the
landscape and individual buildings, and work
together with various engineering consortia to
oversee these projects from initial planning to
final construction.
They have also done designs and studies
for the later development stages of the Got-
thard axis. Within the scope of their present
construction activities they are working on
eight portal areas, eleven main buildings
(preliminary railway engineering and opera-
tions buildings), more than forty bridges and
underpasses, as well as eight deposits of exca-
vated materials and over 100 new structures
(for example, technical buildings, tunnel
entrances, animal passages, bridges, retaining
walls, substations and workers housing). The
portal landscapes at the Urner Reusstal and
Ticinos Valle Leventina are the beginning
and end of the Gotthard Base Tunnel. This is
where countless requirements and standards
converge. Railway infrastructure buildings
and access roads, basins for cooling warm
mountain water, railroad switches and under-
passes surround the flyover structure that
leads the old Gotthard line over the portal for
the new basis tunnel.
This large-scale curve appears as an
800-metre-long and 12-metre-high crescent-
shaped curve. Its sharp-edged concrete shape
spans large granite blocks. Cooling of the tun-
nels by the trains running through them had a
major influence on the design of the portal
areas. In order to prevent short circuits caused
by escaping warm air and indrawn fresh air,
the tunnels were staggered. Like sharp-ended
needles, they symbolise the piercing of the
mountains as a design theme and disappear
into the mountainsides. Their hexagonal pro-
file eliminates the need for any additional tun-
nel routes and combines the trains clearance
gauge with aerodynamic specifications to cre-
ate an ideal air flow.
When passenger and freight trains shoot
out of the tubes at up to 250 kilometres per
hour, trailing warm mountain air behind
them, the sun-warmed granite blocks pro- Left: Cooling for the tunnels
mote its updraft and also provide a habitat played a crucial role in the
for pioneer plants and reptiles. The crescent- planning of the portal areas
shaped flyover might well have been at Bodio and Ernstfeld.
designed as a green embankment, but the
architecture is conceived of in a topographi- Right: The yover structures
cal way, the landscape architecturally. The also had an effect on the
crescent-shaped arc is now symbolic of the concept and were integrated
epochal performance at Gotthard and stands into the overall design.
for one thing in particular: 100,000 tons of
creative willpower. Natural stone as an hom-
age to the design of the landscape and the
structures of the old Gotthard line, and
dynamically cut concrete, that orchestrates
the rapid travel of the trains as a reminis-
cence of Rino Tami.
31
Val Nalps ventilation structure, Sedrun
Rino Tamis influence is, as mentioned above,
certainly no coincidence, as the BGG carefully
analysed his design of the Ticino motorway A2
(Gotthard route) and also faced similar prob-
lems with the railway tunnel. When Pascal Sig-
rist read the word combinare on one of Tamis
sketches, he felt confirmed in his assumptions:
This is exactly the way we work. Large infra-
structure projects tend to be a built collection
of technical planning requirements. We com-
bine functions and give integral solutions a
clear form. The Val Nalps ventilation structure
serves as a before/after metaphor. This
exhaust pipe of a Ferrari was the first structure
32
the BGG worked on. But a short lesson about
tunnelling is necessary before we continue:
With long tunnels miners dont just work
toward each other from two sides. They make
so-called intermediate headings in the
mountain and assemble tunnel boring
machines at these points. From here these
monsters, which can be up to 450 metres around blasted out of the cliffs, with a shaft
long, eat their way towards one end. Waste
heat and dust created by the machine make the
air in the tunnel, which is already damp and up
to 50 C in temperature, even worse. This
makes the provision of powerful ventilation
systems essential, especially during construc-
tion. One of the three intermediate headings at
the Gotthard Base Tunnel is located far below
the village of Sedrun. This is the secret heart of
the project and only accessible via an 800-
metre-deep shaft. Because of the possible for-
mation of fog, the ventilation shaft is not near
the village, but in the Val Nalps side valley. The
project, which was originally of a purely engi-
neering nature, consisted of a spacious turn-
made of precast concrete that towered above
the steep slope. Its wedge shape was intended
to protect it from avalanches and rock falls,
and safety nets were to be provided. The built
solution, an impressive concrete sculpture,
now provides a clever solution to all the above
requirements: It follows the course of the slope
and vents toward the front instead of upwards,
and its broad lower wedge shape splits any
avalanches and deftly integrates the turn-
around. At this location, combinare means
having a compact form that hugs the slope,
requiring both less concrete and blasting.
The overburden at Buzza di Biasca
The biggest interventions along the Gotthard
axis are neither concrete animals nor stone arcs,
however. At about 6.6 million tons, the artificial
mountain near the south portal at Biasca takes
this honour. The 50-metre-high mound is one of
eight, and together with six bathing and nature
preservation islands in the Urnersee lake serves
as a deposit for material excavated from the rock
formations that was not used as concrete aggre- Left: The Val Nalps ventila-
gate or for recultivation of the terrain. The man- tion structure hugs the
agement of the excavated material, which slope, as the tunnel is later-
amounts to more than five of the pyramids at ally vented.
Cheops, is certainly a huge logistics challenge:
70 kilometres of conveyor belts transport the Right: In Buzza di Biasca
rock to concrete plants, interim storage and the material excavated from the
artificial mountains and islands. The deposit rock formations is deposit-
near Buzza di Biasca proudly exhibits its artifici- ed in shaped mountains.
ality instead of trying to imitate nature,
explains Pascal Sigrist when talking about this
geometric engineering project. Horizontal
paths and vertical drainage ways criss-cross the
artificial mountain at regular intervals. Weath-
ering and vegetation will, however, eventually
blur the sharp distinction to nature.
33
Multipurpose building, Faido
The intermediate heading at Faido provides
access to a sloping tunnel instead of a vertical
one. Here, the BGG combined several engineer-
ing structures in one compact building. The
retaining wall at the base of the cliff looks like a
120-metre-long concrete animal. The entrance
to the exploratory tunnel, building services and
operation rooms of the neighbouring substation
is in the animals tail. The torso is formed by
railway infrastructure, i.e. computers, control
equipment and giant diesel engines for emer-
gency power. The 27-metre-high head, which
slopes downhill and serves as the ventilation
station, tapers in order to blow the air high up
34
the hillside. The slope, which is logical at this
point, runs across the entire front and bends in
the opposite direction at the head. The compact
volume appears somewhat ponderous, which is
quite unlike the delicate dynamics of the portals
and the ventilation structure at Val Nalps. The
convincing design vocabulary there has been
turned into a more crystalline-mannered inde-
pendence here.
Kantonsstrae underpass, Camorino
One must imagine Sisyphus as happy, grinned
Sigrist as he quoted Camus, as the BGGs work
certainly requires perseverance. Since the
beginning of construction in 2000 the group has
also provided support for the construction of
more than 100 subsidiary buildings and 40
bridges and underpasses. They had to repeatedly
explain the purpose and details of their work
and convince numerous engineers to go along
with their design ideas, which are based on
locally applicable design guidelines for tunnel
portals and entrances, underpasses and bridges,
slopes and retaining walls, railings and fences,
concrete surfaces, colours and signals. Much of
the underpass at the Kantonsstrasse in Camorino
is similar to the other underpasses the group
has worked on. The troughs cross-section is
rectangular and the wing walls are directly inte-
grated into the retaining walls. A typical bridge
abutment links the drip edge, cable ducts, mast
foundation for overhead lines, service road and
noise protection element in its combined geom-
etry. What is different here, however, is that the
intermediate wall at Camorino dissolves into
polygonal cross supports. It takes its inspiration
from the v-shaped columns of the neighbouring
railway viaduct, under which Ticino envisions a
future city growing.
Cross-border links
This southern canton wants to use the Gotthard
axis as an urban development catalyst and senses
an opportunity to become an important node
between the southern-German-Swiss section of
the country and Milans metropolitan area. And
it should really take advantage of this, as every- Left: The multipurpose
one is aware of the disadvantage of 500-metre- building at Faido is inte-
long freight trains passing by every two min- grated in the landscape as a
utes. The future of the ATG (AlpTransit Got- retaining wall.
thard Ltd), and especially the BGG, is much less
certain: Will the organisational and specialist Right: The intermediate wall
knowledge the firm (which was created espe- in the underpass at Camorino
cially for work on the base tunnel) has be lost? consists of several v-shaped
And who will be responsible for design as the columns.
Gotthard axis is maintained and further devel-
oped in the future? It remains to be seen what
will happen.
This article is based on one that appeared in the
September 2014 edition of the Swiss architecture
magazine Hochparterre.
35
Conor OShea

Owned by the
PUBLIC
In Chicago, the 606 represents a new era of park-building in
which municipal interagency collaborations manage complex
teams of consultants to tackle the physical, social, environ-
mental, and financial demands presented by outmoded infra-
structure. Under this new model, landscape architecture is
used as a common framework for building new public spaces.

For the 606, multiple municipal agencies managed large teams of landscape architects and
engineers, capable of tackling the complex conditions presented by outmoded infrastructure.

36
37
In 2002, the BNSF Logistics Park in Elwood, Illinois opened on the site of a
decommissioned U.S. Army munitions plant. The freight yard and its adja-
cent Union Pacific port in Joliet now constitute the largest inland port in the
United States. Just a year earlier and some 40 miles northeast, in Chicago,
after decades of declining manufacturing in the area, Canadian Pacific ended
all freight traffic on a nearly three-mile industrial corridor embedded in 19th-
century urban fabric. On June 6, 2015, this 17-foot-high raised embankment
opened to the public as the 606, a park network comprising the 2.7-mile-long
bike and running path known as the Bloomingdale Trail, four adjacent
at-grade parks (with two more planned), and 12 access points. The project
resulted from a planning and design process that involved multiple city agen-
cies, nonprofit, community groups, and over 20 consultants. The collabora-
tion among Collins Engineers (project management; lead civil and structural
engineers), Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates (landscape architecture
design), and Frances Whitehead (lead artist), drew upon feedback from mul-
tiple public charrettes and input from numerous community groups.

A new type of park. The 606 represents the mature phase of a new mode of
civic park production in Chicago. Under this model, multiple municipal
agencies manage large teams of landscape architects, engineers, and other
consultants capable of tackling the complex physical, social, and environmen-
tal conditions presented by outmoded infrastructure. These agencies also
blend unique combinations of public and private project-funding. In this new
model, landscape not engineering or architecture is used as a common
framework for thinking about and building new public spaces. Within this
condition, the 606 distinguishes itself from a concentration of other high-pro-
file parks built under this regime in Chicago by the serious debates it cata-
lyzed: how the city should invest in its neighborhoods, how community needs
should be met, and how landscape architecture can contribute to the produc-
tion of democratic urban spaces. Its straightforward celebration of existing
industrial infrastructure, climate-aware planting, and pragmatic primary
function as a transportation corridor set it apart from other parks built since
the turn of the century in Chicago. As Matt Urbanski of Michael Van Valken-
burgh Associates (MVVA) declares, Its not imported glamour and glitz.
Reconceiving abandoned railroad tracks as public space is of course not new.
The 606 comes on the heels of other projects, including Pariss Promenade
plante, Berlins Natur-Park Sdgelnde, New Yorks High Line, and Atlantas
Belt Line. These projects demonstrate the efficacy of landscape architectures
skill in transforming 19th- and early 20th-century logistical infrastructure
into powerful economic generators of 21st-century urban economies.
Though prioritized by Mayor Rahm Emmanuel during his first re-elec-
tion campaign along with other new downtown parks like Maggie Daley Park
and the Chicago Riverwalk, the 606 is several miles northwest of the central

38
The 606 is a new type of park network, comprising the 2.7-mile-long bike and running path
known as the Bloomingdale Trail, four adjacent at-grade parks, and 12 access points.

39
The 606 is in many ways a bridge project 37 bridges were replaced along its length. The
engineers worked hand in hand with the landscape architects in conceiving the overall design.

40
business district. Its eastern terminus at the Walsh Park access point lies at the
heart of primarily white neighborhoods within short commuting distance to
downtown by public transportation. Its western terminus at the Ridgway
Trailhead is heavily Latino, with lower property values and less access to rapid
transit. While its length led to contentious debate over its outcome, the
design team and managing agencies nobly aimed to democratically connect
the desires of the Wicker Park, Bucktown, Logan Square, and Humboldt Park
neighborhoods through an even and practical design approach.
Dialogues within the community on the future use of the corridor were
formalized in 2003 when Ben Helphand co-founded the Friends of the
Bloomingdale Trail. The former railroad, which first appeared as a potential
bike trail in the citys 1997 Bicycle Facilities Development Plan, was also
included in the influential 2004 Logan Square Open Space Plan. From then
until 2011, the triad of the City of Chicago Department of Transportation
(CDOT), the Chicago Park District (CPD), and the Trust for Public Land
(TPL) were involved in fundraising, land acquisition, and community out-
reach. A three-day public charrette in 2011 informed the Bloomingdale
Trail Framework Plan, which was published in 2012 and foundational in
the formal design process that followed. According to James Hamelka of
Collins Engineers, the design process was thoroughly collaborative. Though
the project is in many ways a bridge project 37 bridges were replaced
along its length the engineers worked hand in hand with MVVA and
Whitehead in conceiving the overall design.
The design delivers on the communitys desire for trail access, recreational
space, and a running and bike path, but is also decidedly unfinished. As Matt
Urbanski and Frances Whitehead stress, the park is built to last, but its design
is not overdetermined. Part of the reason behind this, says Whitehead, is a
vision inherited from the community: that the future park should be a living
work of art that can be owned by the public. Ongoing programming and stew-
ardship of the 606 by local residents will drive its evolution. For example, in
2013, TPL announced the appointment of a two-year Exelon Fellow, an educa-
tion leader to connect children and families of the nearby 25 neighborhoods to
the 606. The 606 will evolve through both community involvement and its
phenologic planting strategy. A designed landscape, according to Urbanski,
comprises both variation and continuity. In the case of the 606, over 450 ser-
viceberries are distributed along the length of the trail; they are punctuated by
striking groups of monoculture like the poplar thicket between Drake and St.
Louis avenues, the smoke bush tunnel at Humboldt Boulevard, and the sumac
tunnel between Rockwell Street and Maplewood Avenue. The serviceberries
are intended to leverage the pathways linear form to engage people in a cli-
mate conversation by using a showy flowery species. The serviceberries,
which Whitehead compares to the annual cherry blossoms in Washington
D.C.s tidal basin, reveal a regional phenomenon: the warming effect of Lake

41
THE 606, CHICAGO, USA
Client: Chicago Department of Transportation and Chicago Park District
Landscape architects: Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates
Structures: Collins Engineers, Inc.
Lead Artist: Frances Whitehead / ARTetal
Year of construction: 2015

Michigan across the city. Serviceberries will flower in succession from east to
west over a five-day period, casting global and local climate changes into relief.
Chinese lilacs planted every tenth of a mile will become sources of data for cit-
izen-scientists reporting bloom time for the USA National Phenology Net-
work. The Chicago Park District today is increasingly recognized for excel-
lence in project management, community engagement, and project imple-
mentation. The 606s completion represents the mature phase of a new mode
of civic park production that emerged with the opening of Millennium Park in
2004. The types of sites available for parks in the 21st century are usually pol-
luted, physically complex, and embedded in a variety of longstanding social
dynamics. Reconciling these factors takes large multidisciplinary teams, ones
that, according to Michael Lange, senior project manager at the CPD, would
be too expensive to employ full-time, in-house. Under this regime, projects are
produced through what Lange describes as enormous interagency efforts. For
example, in the case of the 606, in addition to the 20-plus consultants on the
team, CDOT applied for much of the funding through a Congestion Mitiga-
tion and Air Quality Improvement grant from the United States Department
of Transportation. While the project was then turned over to the CPD for
managing the design and community input process along with TPL, CDOT
was responsible for bidding and construction. Like Millennium Park, Maggie
Daley Park, and the Chicago Riverwalk, new parks are now rarely funded by a
single source. Managing diverse financial sources in the case of the 606, a
combination of $56 million in public money and $20 million in private fund-
ing is a major responsibility of the CPD. Unlike Millennium Park and other
new downtown parks in Chicago, the 606 is a neighborhood park conceived
through thoughtful community engagement. Its materiality, too, is vastly dif-
ferent. Galvanized steel fencing, exposed concrete viaducts, and its ten-foot-
wide concrete mixed-use pathway bordered on either side by two-foot-wide
rubber running paths are reminiscent of CDOT standards and help reframe
Chicagos industrial heritage for recreational users. Like Chicagos historic
parks, which helped shape the citys expansion during a period of rapid growth
during the 19th and early 20th centuries, the 606 provides mixing space for a
range of Chicago residents. On a recent weekend visit, joggers and cyclists
diverse in age and ethnicity could be seen using the trail. Within the vast
socioeconomic, financial, and physical complexity of projects like the 606, the
landscape architects role as mediator of commercial, community, and civic
responsibilities grows ever more important. Compared with similar adaptive
reuse projects nationally, the 606 is distinguished by modest design, physical
accessibility, and intelligent planting, all inflected by a commitment to ongoing
community-engagement programming. It is a park in which the landscape
architect, lead artist, and engineer worked collaboratively to navigate a com-
plex urban force field to produce a space that, as Urbanski says, is in the
neighbhorhood, [and] of the neighborhood.

42
The design of the whole structure is decidedly unnished, so that the park can be owned by
the puclic. Its not imported glamour and glitz says the landscape architects of the project.

43
Kees Lokman

Exploring a New Paradigm

With climate change, urban regions must develop new approaches and policies to sustainably manage
regional water resources. A group of students from the University of British Columbia spent several
weeks in Mexico City to research new synergies between water management, mobility, and open space.

Located in the Valley of Mexico at 2,200 metres
above sea level, the basin of Mexico City has no
natural drainage outlet for water. As such, floods,
droughts, and other water-related dynamics have
always been part of the region. When the Aztecs
founded their capital city Tenochtitln here in
1325, they engineered an impressive system of
water infrastructures, including dikes, locks,
aqueducts, and chinampas: small, rectangular
islands filled with fertile dredged soil to grow
crops. This half-natural, half-artificial landscape
was at once productive, environmentally sensi-
tive, and spatially distinctive. It both provided
protection against floods and allowed for the irri-
gation and lacustrine transport of agricultural
crops. Even up until the 20th century, the region
hosted several shallow lakes that fluctuated
between one to three metres during the wet and
dry seasons, providing a dynamic equilibrium by
regulating floods, infiltration, and precipitation.
This drastically changed at the turn of the 20th
century. The implementation of artisanal wells for
the extraction of water from the shallow aquifer,
combined with the construction of large-scale
hydraulic infrastructures to drain the lakes and to
redirect waste and stormwater, completely
changed the basins hydrological cycle. This sys-
tem, much of which still remains operational
today, diverts water out of the valley into the Tula
River. Additionally, between 1930 and 1940, the
construction of multiple dams as well as the
implementation of water transfer systems from
the Lerma Basin (1951) and the Cutzamala Basin
(1982) further complicated issues of water man-
agement. Today, nearly one-third of Mexico
Citys total drinking water is transported from as
far as 130 kilometres away, and uphill over an
elevation of 1,100 metres a system that uses an
equivalent of energy that could meet the needs
of 1.5 million people. At the same time, overex-
ploitation of groundwater is causing land sub-
sidence at alarming rates (approximately one
metre per 10 years), resulting in building dam-
age, broken and leaky pipes, and groundwater
contamination. To make matters worse, the city
pumps massive amounts of untreated storm and
contaminated wastewater to the neighbouring
state of Hidalgo, where it is used to irrigate nearly

44
90 thousand hectares of agricultural land. Crops
grown in this area are transported to Mexico
City to feed its people, not surprisingly creating
a serious environmental and public health issue.
Another challenge is the fact that Mexico
City is composed of two jurisdictions: the federal
district (DF) and the State of Mexico. Despite
recent efforts to improve coordination between
the two jurisdictions, ongoing shifts in popula-
tion and economic activity from DF to the State
of Mexico are posing significant challenges with
respect to urban development, water manage-
ment, and infrastructure planning. This con-
tributes to growing levels of inequality, which
are directly inscribed in the geography. Whereas
(upper-) middle-class neighbourhoods have
access to green space, multi-modal transit, and
amenities, the poor lack basic sanitation and
live in areas prone to natural disasters (flood-
ing, landslides, etc.). Currently, nearly 30% of Above: A so-called pipa
the 21 million people in the metropolitan area delivers large plastic bottles
have inadequate access to clean drinking water to Mexico City to supply the
and solely rely on buying water from pipas (water inhabitants with drinking
trucks). While presumably safe, this alternative water. Due to a decient
is often more expensive than piped water, and drinking-water distribution
service is sporadic, leaving communities some- system and low quality of
times without water for days. public water supplies, Mexi-
cans are the largest con-
Making Water Visible Again. Clearly, Mexico sumers of bottled water per
City needs alternative ways to deal with its water capita in the world, accord-
management. As with many complex planning ing to the International Bot-
and design problems, successful solutions f tled Water Association.
45
During the course, UBC stu-
dents studied water-related
issues in Mexico City through
four different lenses: (1)
ecology, (2) mobility, (3)
housing, and (4) waste.
They explored these topics
by researching a particular
cross-section of the city,
which spans from the pros-
perous areas in the west to
the poorer and less-serviced
communities in the east.

46
STUDY ABROAD COURSE VISUALIZING MEXICO CITYS WATER CRISIS
University of British Columbia, April-May 2016
Instructors: Kees Lokman and Daniel Roehr
Teaching Assistant: Gustavo Manzano Prez Pelez
Student Researchers: Kirsten Harrison, Fahimeh Vahabi, Huan Pan, Genevieve Depelteau, Lacee Barr, Patrick Beech, Ayishah Chui, Taylor Kirsh, Yusraa Tadj, Julia Eyerund, Grace Jiang, Afrooz
Fallahmanshadi, Shakun Singla, Baiyi Chen, Yingluo Wang, Nan Zhou, Emily Rennalls, Xuxin Feng, Julia Casol, Mahsa Momenzadeh, Alyssa Quiring, Luyang Zhou and Reese Lewis
Support Mexico City: Centro Cultural Border, Elena Tudela Rivadeneyra and Adriana Chavez

47
involve approaches at regional, neighbour-
hood and local scales, as well as implementa-
tion strategies that are informed by top-down
and bottom-up initiatives, both short and
long-term. In recent years, designers have
developed imaginative and opportunistic pro-
posals to transform the hydrological cycle in
the Mexico City Basin. The project Ro La Pie-
dad by Taller 13, for example, proposes to day-
light nearly 15 kilometres of river currently
hidden under a major highway. This provides a
holistic solution that combines an integrated
system for managing and treating water with
multi-modal transportation, public green
space, and ecological restoration connecting
people both visually and physically with the
48
dynamics of the hydrological cycle. Similar to
recent river-regeneration efforts in cities like
Seoul, Singapore, and Madrid, Ro La Piedad
has real potential to bring about change and
reconfigure Mexico Citys relationship with
water. Unfortunately, due to a strong pro-car
lobby and lack of political will, the project has
not moved beyond a conceptual design phase.
Other similarly ambitious projects like Alberto
Kalachs proposal to regenerate 7,000 hectares
of ancient lakes have also been stalled.
Indeed, as argued by David Barkin, econom-
ics professor at Mexico Citys Metropolitan
Autonomous University: This is not a crisis of
water, its a crisis of governance and paradigms.
Due to this failure of decision-makers to imple-
ment these large-scale projects, the more imme-
diate potential for change exists at neighbour-
hood and local scales. Here, two examples,
Bicentennial Park by Mario Schjetnan (Grupo de
Diseo Urbano) and Quebradora Hydraulic Park
by Loreta Castro (Taller Hdrico Urbano/
UNAM), promote ways to reconnect urban pop-
ulations with urban water management while
creating new open spaces and cultural platforms.
Ecological Engineering. Constructed on the
site of a former PEMEX refinery in northern
Mexico City, Bicentennial Park provides a multi-
layered landscape that fuses ecology, hydrology,
geology, and technology while hosting numerous
public programs and recreational activities. Aes-
thetically and hydrologically, the most interesting
section of the park is the Botanical Garden,
which contains seven different micro-landscapes
featuring plants of Mexicos major bioclimatic
zones. Water is not only the main visual element
of this section of the park; it is also functional as
it collects, treats, and cycles all the water that falls
on the site. Surrounding the thematic gardens
which include a subterranean orchid garden as
well as a reconstructed chinampa is a system of
constructed wetlands, triangular rainwater col-
lection structures, and underground cisterns that
collects and stores all the rainwater. After water is
filtered and purified, it is injected into deep wells
(at approximately 80 metres) to recharge the
city aquifer. Here, ecological engineering has
informed the design of a cultural landscape that Left: In recent years, Taller
integrates human activities with ecological sys- 13 has worked in Regenesis
tems to create mutual benefits. and 28 other individual
areas on a proposal to day-
Landscape Infrastructure. The Quebradora light La Piedad River to
Hydraulic Park offers another innovative strategy enhance mobility and eco-
for the integration of social, ecological and spatial logical connectivity.
strategies related to stormwater management. The
park is located in a flood-prone area at the foot- Right: Bicentennial Park
hills of the Sierra Santa Catarina in Iztapalapa: a celebrates the horticultural,
poor, high-crime neighbourhood that lacks hydrological and cultural
access to both green space and potable water. In heritage of Mexico by repur-
order to address these issues, the design incorpo- posing a formerly industrial
rates a series of catchment basins to store and site and integrating innova-
infiltrate rainwater, a program area that can be tive water-management
temporarily flooded in times of heavy rain, and a strategies.
49
system of multi-level pathways to provide safe
access and views from which the dynamics of
water and activities are perceptible. The entire
park embraces processes of water to create mean-
ingful interactions, cultivate public awareness,
and support local ecologic and economic viability.
Water in all its forms is celebrated and allowed to
continuously change the landscape, leaving
behind watercourses and pools, and reflecting the
seasonal fluctuations and identity of Mexico City.
Let it Rain. At an even more intimate scale,
Isla Urbana is providing opportunities for citi-
zens to take more control over their water
futures. The organization is implementing rela-
tively inexpensive rainwater harvesting (RWH)
50
systems, especially in marginalized communi-
ties that lack consistent access to water. By cap-
turing water that falls during the rainy season,
the system can supply typical households with
water for up to 6 to 8 months. By taking advan-
tage of elements that are already part of a typical
house in Mexico City such as a pitched or flat
concrete roof, an underground cistern, water-
storage tanks, and a small water pump the sys-
tem does not require expensive retrofits. Isla
Urbana estimates that RWH, if widely imple-
mented, could provide nearly a third of Mexico
Citys entire water supply. This would not only
limit the citys reliance on energy-intensive
infrastructures that bring in water over great
distances, it also provides a flexible and scalable
solution that can be easily implemented in
peripheral neighbourhoods. Where imple-
mented, RWH systems act as agents of change.
Residents now spend less time securing water,
allowing them to invest time and resources in
other aspects of life. In Paraje Quiltepec, a commu-
nity we visited, access to water enabled residents to
plant an orchard and cultivate crops in order to
secure their own food sources. They also imple-
mented a bio-digester to produce biogas (energy
for heating) and fertilizer to enrich the soil. Here,
simple access to water fully transformed the
urban landscape, enabling the cultivation of new
resources and revitalizing the human spirit. In all
of this, education plays a key role. First, there is
a need to educate residents on the benefits of
RWH and the opportunities it provides to posi-
tively impact their everyday lives. Second, deci-
sion-makers need to be convinced that RWH, as
a low-tech and replicable application to individ-
ual buildings, is indeed a viable solution to
regional water-management issues.
A New Water-Management Paradigm. Water
management is becoming increasingly
important in urbanized areas around the world.
Mexico City, as a megacity with a simultaneous
excess and lack of water, provides a very relevant
place to study these issues. It provides a legible
example of how changing policies and engineering
practices have radically altered the natural water
cycle. At the same time, these water pressures are
inspiring designers to test and develop more sus- Left: Quebradora Hydraulic
tainable and resilient models of urban water man- Park in Mexico City pres-
agement, particularly by reintroducing water and ents a new type of water
its dynamics into urban spaces and everyday life. park, reconnecting residents
This requires shifting between local and regional with the dynamics of the
scales, providing short- and long-term solutions; hydrological cycle in the
manipulating flows and associated physical land- Mexico City Basin.
scapes; and addressing socio-economic and eco-
logical needs. Like Mexico City, there are dozens Right: UBC Students receiv-
of cities around the world in need of a new water- ing a tour of Paraje Quilte-
management paradigm. Here, planners and pec, a semi-rural commu-
designers especially landscape architects have nity that adopted Isla
a key role to play in providing solutions that com- Urbanas rainwater- har-
bine ecology and economy, functionality and aes- vesting systems and also
thetics, and advocacy and activism in order to integrated a low-tech bio-
reshape our relationship with water. gas digester.
51
The Garden Bridge is a new spectacular design for Central London. It is planned to span the River Thames from Temple to
the South Bank. The 366-meter-long concrete and steel construction is designed to appear as a quasi-organic form.

52
David Madden

Designing
Against
the Public
Spectacular new public spaces are being built in many cities
today. But for the most part, they are privately financed and
controlled. Far from embodying the democratic spirit of the
city, they illustrate the domination of urban development by
elites. The Garden Bridge, a new eye-catching project in the
heart of London, exemplifies this trend and exposes the
limits and contradictions of contemporary urban public space.

53
Urban public space is big business today. Cities across the world are con-
structing expensive new parks, promenades and other new high-profile
public projects. This may seem on the surface to be a boost for the collec-
tive, civic dimension of the urban experience, a vote of confidence in the
urban commons. But many of the spectacular new public spaces being
constructed in cities today are privately financed and controlled. They
speak more to the domination of urban development by elites than they
do to the democratic spirit of the city.
The Garden Bridge, a planned pedestrian crossing in Central London,
exemplifies these trends. The Garden Bridge is planned to span the River
Thames from Temple to the South Bank. The 366-meter-long concrete and
steel construction is designed to appear as a quasi-organic form emerging
from two giant stem-like piers in the riverbed. The deck will be covered
with trees, plantings, and a walkway. A team led by Thomas Heatherwick
designed the bridge, working with the engineering firm Arup and the land-
scape designer Dan Pearson. The project was originally estimated to cost
60 million, though that figure has now grown to 175 million. Fees and
corporate sponsorship are key to its business model. As planned, the bridge
will meet some of its operating costs by serving as a hired venue for private
events. Money will also be raised by selling naming rights to various parts
of the bridge, and through other revenue-generating activities. At first, the
bridge was going to be financed entirely by private funding. But significant
amounts of public money have also been pledged towards it, including 30
million each from Transport for London and the Treasury.

Elitist Urbanism. The project is, in essence, an emanation of Londons

political, financial and cultural establishments. It was first promoted by
the actress Joanna Lumley, who is a childhood friend of the former
Mayor of London Boris Johnson, one of the bridges most enthusiastic
backers. Heatherwick himself is closely associated with two other initia-
tives promoted by Johnson when he was mayor: the New Routemaster
buses and the cauldron for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. The
current Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, has expressed scepticism regard-
ing the bridge, but counts himself as a proponent. Other well-known sup-
porters include the Cameron governments Chancellor of the Exchequer,
George Osborne; Sarah Sands, the editor of the Evening Standard; Mervyn
Davies, a banker and former Labour government minister; and Richard
Rogers, the architect who has done much to promote particular kinds of
urban regeneration projects in the UK. The Garden Bridge Trust, the
organisation that is promoting the project, is packed with representatives
of finance, insurance, real estate and the media. If the Garden Bridge is
public space in any sense, it is a very narrow, well-connected and power-
ful sliver of the public that is promoting it.

54
Opponents of the bridge criticise that the structure is blocking historic views of world heritage sites. Others object to the
misappropriation of public funds for infrastructure, its failure as transportation infrastructure or as a public space.

55
Against the Garden Bridge. There are many different grounds upon
which to object to the Garden Bridge. For some, the issue is the integrity
of the process by which Heatherwick was selected. Jane Duncan, presi-
dent of the Royal Institute of British Architects, is one of many prominent
voices to raise questions about how Heatherwick was chosen for the job.
Two other firms, Marks Barfield and Wilkinson Eyre, had been invited to
submit designs. But Boris Johnson is alleged to have decided to award the
project to Heatherwick from the beginning, and Transport for London
admitted that the procurement process was neither open nor objective.
Others object to the projects spoiling of historic and protected views of
the Thames. The artist Will Jennings, one of the Garden Bridges most
prominent critics, has objected to the bridges blocking of historic views
of world heritage sites. Jennings and others have noted that the render-
ings used to promote the bridge present a drones-eye view of the site,
rather than an actual pedestrians point of view. Westminster Council
remarked that if this proposal was for a private commercial development
of this height and size, the harm to these views would be considered
unacceptable and the application refused. Yet others object to the misap-
propriation of public funds for infrastructure. There are many locations
on the Thames where new crossings are needed, but the Garden Bridges
planned site is not one of them. It will stand only three hundred metres
away from Waterloo Bridge. In basic ways, it is bound to fail as transpor-
tation infrastructure. The designers expect long queues, which will com-
plicate the use of the bridge for commuting. Cyclists will be required to
dismount and walk their bikes. The project is manifestly not designed as
a solution to transportation problems.

A Failed Public Space. These are all serious points that raise major ques-
tions. But the deeper reason to object to the Garden Bridge is that it fails as
an urban space. And it does so in ways that are symptomatic of many of the
most troubling developments in contemporary public space in cities world-
wide. The urban public realm has long been shaped by opposing forces:
between city dwellers advocating control versus those pushing for autonomy;
and between urbanites seeking to use outdoor space for commerce versus
those seeking to use it for free leisure or collective politics. The ideal of pub-
lic space as a contemporary version of the ancient Greek agora was
always misleading. But there were times when public space provided a
respite from market-led urbanisation and facilitated critical opposition to
the urban power structure. The historian Lisa Keller describes how public
spaces in nineteenth-century London and New York became sites for free
speech and assembly. The philosopher Iris Marion Young defined public
space in the twentieth century as the collection of places where anyone can
speak and anyone can listen. While in different historical eras, actual public

56
The project was originally estimated to cost 60 million, though that gure has now grown to 175 million. As planned, it
will meet some of its operating costs by serving as a hired venue or by selling naming rights to various parts of the bridge.

57
spaces have often departed from these visions, the existence of the urban
public realm is still justified by the possibility of serving as a political and
social resource available to all. The Garden Bridge serves no such public
purposes. It is planned not as a common social and political resource but as
a strictly controlled, privatised tourist trap. The Garden Bridge Trust says in
a planning document that it intends to maximise the opportunity provided
by the status of the bridge as private land with permitted access, by intro-
ducing a set of conditions prior to opening to help manage the bridge envi-
ronment. While the group has backed away from its initial plan to require
tickets for groups of eight people or more, the fact remains that, like Pater-
noster Square and the viewing platforms at the top of City of London sky-
scrapers, the Garden Bridge will not be a place for public assembly. It will be
a place where public assembly will be off limits. The organisation lists Pub-
lic Protest/Encampment as one Crime Related Threat that must be antic-
ipated and actively avoided. In order to deter potential troublemakers, the
bridge will be fully monitored by closed-circuit television. There are plans to
track visitors mobile phones. The self-conscious whimsy of the design dis-
guises the fact that the bridge is planned as a high-tech surveillance-scape.
In this sense, the project resembles recent design interventions in other
cities. Joanna Lumleys original idea notwithstanding, the direct inspira-
tion for the Garden Bridge is supposed to be the High Line in New York
City. Critics and supporters alike have argued over whether or not the
Garden Bridge will live up to the High Lines standard in terms of design.
But the goal of emulating the High Line is itself part of the problem. The
High Line is also a privately operated public space, closely tied to local
real estate, finance, and culture industry elites. Research has shown that
the users of the High Line are significantly less diverse than the neigh-
bourhoods that surround it. Like the Garden Bridge, it has been justified
by its appeal to tourists in a city not lacking for places to visit. As a design
intervention and icon of adaptive reuse, the High Line has clearly excited
many. But it was above all a mechanism for pushing the gentrification of
Chelsea into overdrive. It should therefore not be treated as a model for
public space today by London or other cities.

What Cities Need. Unequal cities like contemporary London do not

need more projects that reflect and augment the power of elites. Instead,
they should seek to produce spaces with actual democratic and egalitarian
sensibilities. Central London is enough of a luxury product as it is with-
out the Garden Bridge. What London truly needs today is a public realm
through which city dwellers can experience the conviviality of
everyday urban multiculture rather than be subjected to a controlled,
gentrified version of it and a space where Londoners can contest urban
inequality rather than being absorbed by it.

58
The deck of the Garden Bridge will be covered with trees, plantings, and a walkway. It is planned as a pedestrian crossing,
but the designers expect long queues of people, which will complicate the use of the bridge for daily commuting.

59
Alexander Gutzmer

LIVING (AND DYING)

MVRDV have designed a City Container that consists of 3500 containers. They are sub-
stracted from the worldwide ow of trade to form a megacontainer on the scale of the city.

60
 It is one of the prime symbols of contemporary capitalism: the
IN A BOX shipping container. The plain box stands for the impressive ef-
ciencies of todays global logistics system. Inherently ambivalent
as so much of modern technology, it can be used for the most
noble purposes as well as for the most cruel and atrocious ones.

61
MVRDVs design is like a beehive with 3500 niches for sleeping, eating, exhibiting and
performing. It creates space for hotels, bars, galleries, business units, schools or ateliers.
One of the most shocking scenes of recent television history occurs
in Season Two of HBOs The Wire: thirteen unidentified young
women are discovered dead in a container at the docks of Baltimore
port. A crucial element in this scene that reveals the horrors of mod-
ern human trafficking is the shipping container a standardized box
made of steel, with suitable strength to sustain the shipment, storage,
and handling that it undergoes as it travels across oceans and conti-
nents. In the universe of todays globalized capitalist economy it is as
ubiquitous as it is indispensable. Logistically, the invention of the
modern shipping container was a stroke of genius.
Ethically, the situation is more complicated. Technology is ambiv-
alent per se. It can be put to use by good motives as well as sinister
and evil ones. The scriptwriters of The Wire must have been aware
of that; their TV series is arguably one of the most lucid pop-cultural
critiques of the drama of the capitalist city. The container is indifferent
to what it is being transported in it. It does not care. Its economic
efficacy is available regardless of whether it transports tea or machine
62
guns, bananas or bombs, motor bikes or human beings, even dead
ones. It is simply a sturdy and robust box used to carry objects effi-
ciently over large distances.
A GLOBAL SYSTEM OF PORTS. In organizing the constant flow of
commodities across the planet the shipping container has become a
crucial factor. Its efficiency has made it the congenial partner for the
erection of the global trading system we are witnessing today. The
container is the glue that makes global trade logistically feasible at
all. It is the missing link connecting the worldwide system of produc-
ing, transporting (mainly shipping), and consuming. What is more, it
is what connects water and land. The container eases the transition of
product delivery from sea to land. It works like an amphibian. In this
way, it is also essential for the functioning of the global system of
ports. Without containers, there would be no ports as we know them
today. And without ports, the world of trade, and the global economic
network, would be a very different one.

While the system of ports spans the entire world, it is by no means
globally equal. In fact, the weights of this port system are currently chang-
ing dramatically. Its center of gravity has been shifting towards the East.
Being born in Hamburg, I always fancied the idea that Hamburgs port
might be a key player in global goods transport, and the city of Hamburg
a center of global trade. However, looking at the numbers, this is clearly
not the case. According to current statistics published by the World Ship-
ping Council, Hamburg ranks only as number 15 of the worlds busiest
ports. Rotterdam comes in as number 11. With the exception of Dubai,
number 9, the top ten are all in East Asia: Shanghai; Singapore; Shenzhen;
Hong Kong; Ningbo-Zhoushan (China), Busan (South Korea); Qingdao
(China); Guangzhou (China); Tianjin (China).
TOOLS OF POWER. Just as containers, ports too are much more than
indifferent or neutral enablers. They are tools of power. If you own the ports,
you control the flows of global capitalism. It might be relevant for a country
to be the home base of the most successful digital enterprises. But Amazon
The Village Underground in Lisbon is a co-working space for artists, musicians and design-
ers. It consists of stacked containers and is situated under the 25 de Abril Bridge.
and company can only profit from those global trade processes that can be
physically handled. You can only shop an iPad if it can be delivered to your
house. And for this, it needs to be transported from its place of origin, e.g.
from an industrial hub like the infamous Chinese Pearl River Delta.
No country has understood the relevance of ports for strengthening
its power in the global trade system (and increasing its geopolitical sway)
as well as China. Not only does the country already own most of the
worlds biggest ports, as the statistics above show, it also continues to fur-
ther expand its global power network. One strategic region targeted by
Chinas geopolitical ambitions is Africa. As has recently been frequently
reported, China has been investing heavily in Africas infrastructure,
thereby securing its own central position in the running of this
infrastructure. Ports are a crucial part of this investment-based power
strategy, thats why China is helping so many African countries to build
new ports. One key example is the new port of Bagamoyo, currently
being built in Tanzania, East Africa. Bagamoyo Port is probably the most
ambitious current investment program by the Tanzanian government.
63
This building in Flrsheim, Germany, consisting of 22 containers forming a courtyard and
accessed via gallery walkways, offers accommodation to 40 asylum seekers.
Construction started in October 2015, and despite some setbacks, it is
still expected to be finished in 2017. The main funder of the project is the
construction firm China Merchants Group, a company owned by the
Chinese government. Politically, the port project is a co-operation
between Tanzania, China, and Oman. What we can see here is a new sys-
tem of global political alliances unfolding. Ports function as central
nodes in this system, and the central mechanism are containers.
CONTAINER CITY. However, the container is not only the key unit
around which ports and the global product flow in general are planned.
It is also the visual icon that distinguishes a high-efficiency port from an
ordinary logistics space. Aesthetically, we perceive containers as a colorful
dots characterizing the visual appearance as well as the spatial structure of
a port. In his essay Flatscape with Containers, published in the journal
New Society, architectural theorist Reyner Banham describes these new
spatial structures. The old port city with its craggy warehouses, masts,
cranes and funnels silhouetted against the sky is a thing of the past. There
are no more picturesque Trotskyites in silk mufflers toting that box, lifting
64
that bale, getting a little drunk. Instead, the new port is an abstract
machine. Banham comments: What you see, more than anything else,
is acreage of flat tarmac or concrete. And in addition to that, what you
see is containers. The new port city is a container city.
A WORLD OBJECT. Only a minority of containers, however, are in ports
at any given time. Most of them are at sea. Given the need for a reduction
of stagnation times in the global economy, only a moving container is an
efficient container. The number of containers that can be moved at any
one moment is impressive. According to data from the information pro-
vider Alphaliner, today there are 6,130 ships active on liner trades. These
have the capacity to transport 20,667,618 TEU, with TEU standing for
Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit. Twenty foot refers to the length of the stan-
dardized container. So, at any given moment, ships can transport and hold
more than 20 million standard containers. However, while the 20-foot con-
tainer is the standard, the stock of containers is increasingly replaced by
40-foot containers, which means that the global capacity of an estimated 33
million TEU is made up of fewer than these 33 million containers.

Whether 20 or 40 feet long, the container is an impressively flexi-
ble object. It can shelter and confine, move and capture things and
people. It can be used as tool for global trade, but also as an architec-
tural icon, as we can see in the hipper areas of our metropolises, where
artists and design offices love to reside in temporary structures built
from containers. Innovative architectural practices such as the Dutch
office MVRDV play with the idea of an outright Container City.
(MVRDV proposed such a design, unsuccessfully, to the city of Rot-
terdam.) It is this flexibility that makes the container a supreme
instrument for organizing the culture and economy of the world we
live in. It is what the philosopher Michel Serres calls a world object.
Quoting Serres, design theorist Craig Martin, in his book Shipping
Container, explains why the container is such a world object. The con-
tainer, he says, is an object that we live through. By this I mean that
they are one of the paradigmatic objects of the global age. This puts
the container alongside other iconic objects such as the car, the mobile
phone, or the laptop computer. Like them, the container enables and
organizes the way we live.
A further container building in Tbingen, Germany. It is used to shelter families seeking
political asylum who are given the right of residence for up to one year.
THE CONTAINER AS A SYMBOL. The container also gives symbolic
expression to our way of life. It is a metaphor. As such, it expresses a
high degree of replicability and differing surfaces amid an essential
quality of sameness. The key quality of the container is its sameness.
Each container functions like the other. And each container has the
capacity to link with its peers in a potentially endless process of pil-
ing-up and stapling. The container is the object that never tires of
being stapled. This characteristic is what makes it so productive, but
also so scary. For the container, shape does not matter. It is the link
that counts. Each container has fulfilled its purpose as soon as it has
been filled, linked to another container, and moved.
If we take this as a metaphor of our times, then the world we live
in is one of brutal functionalism, in which the ultimate end are
objects. Human beings are reduced to joining in in a system that pro-
vides links and is incessantly on the move. In this sense, the container
is a somewhat uncanny world object, even beyond the fact that it can
become the instrument of an inhuman crime as the one displayed in
the televison-series The Wire.
65
66
Viriato Soromenho-Marques

EROTIC
SLOWNESS
In Northern Portugal, in one of the most pristine landscapes
of the country, landscape architects and engineers have pro-
posed a solution to solve one of the major problems of sus-
tainable tourism: how can we enjoy environmental beauty
without spoiling it through unwanted negative impacts?

Henry David Thoreau is the well-known North-American ethical pioneer of

many of our worries regarding the major problem of our planet today, the
global environmental crisis. It is almost impossible not to be deeply touched by
his decision on the 4th July 1845, to move from his hometown Concord to the
wooden shores of pound Walden, only some miles away in the Massachusetts
countryside. He wanted, according to his own words, to live deep and suck
out all the marrow of life. The literary depiction of his two-year-long solitary
experience in the heart of nature can be found in his masterpiece, Walden; or,
Life in the Woods (1854). However, the reader will not find in the hundreds of
pages of this philosophical pilgrimage a mention of the authors serious blun-
der that raised the wrath of timbermen and farmers who also wandered near
the lake. Apparently, Thoreau caused the burning of around 300 acres of valu-
able forest land by letting a camp fire that he had lit run out of control. This
incident may be taken as emblematic of the very same problem facing human-
ity today, only at a global scale: our problem, both as society and individuals, is
the gap between our intentions and our deeds. We will not find solutions, nei-
ther to climate change nor to the massive extinction of biodiversity, merely by
professing lofty moral commitments or giving ponderous speeches, like those
delivered by heads of state at the end of international summits. We need to
learn, as fast and as smartly as possible, how to dwell on earth in ways that do

67
Page 66: The project provides an intense visual experience of the landscape, which gradually
unfolds as the hikers slowly progress, step by step, on a boardwalk comprising sharp zigzags.

The walkway blends into the sourrounding landscape and meanders over the Paiva Rivers left
bank, covering a distance of almost 9 kilometers.The visitor can pick one of its two entries.

not destroy it. That is the essence of grand concepts like sustainable
development or green economics. Will we be capable of developing an alterna-
tive to our current predatory paradigm of civilisation, which continues to
dominate despite attempts at reform? Can human society and the natural
environment establish a way of living together that is symbiotic and peaceful?

The Wildest River

Great challenges are often gained or lost through small-scale events. The big
transition towards a sustainable human existence is being fought in thousands
of small and large battles around the world. These represent a collective learn-
ing process, often progressing by trial and error, in which the contributions of
individual minds, their values and actions, will be the key factors. A good
example of this can be found in Northern Portugal, in the area of the Arouca
municipality. The Paiva River is approximately 110km long, traversing a pris-
tine landscape characterized by a stupendous natural wealth of fauna and
flora. The area is part of the EUs Natura 2000 network and has been classified
as a Site of Community Importance (SCI). The river rises at an altitude of 1000
meters on the Nave Plateau in the Leomil Mountains, near the village of Cara-
pito, located in the Moimenta da Beira municipality. It flows through a steep
valley, crossing ten different municipalities, before meeting the much larger
Douro River at Castelo de Paiva, a village spread on the Douro Rivers left
bank. The Paiva River basin is as rich in biological diversity as its landscape is
beautiful; and it is probably one of the best-preserved wilderness areas of the
country. According to Orlando Ribeiro, the father of modern geographical
studies in Portugal, the area where the Paiva runs is still part of Atlantic Portu-
gal, i.e. those regions of the country that benefit from the moisture and rain
coming in from the ocean and in some parts penetrating even to higher alti-
tudes. The river slopes sport a wide variety of riparian flora, with groves of
alder and ash, flanked by oaks and an impressive range of flower species,
including protected endemic plants like the Anarrhinum longipedicellatum. In
terms of fauna, the basin likewise harbours a large diversity of protected spe-
cies, like the water mole or Pyrenean desman (Galemys pyrenaicus), the com-
mon otter (Lutra Lutra), the gold-striped salamander (Chioglossa Lusitanica),
the Iberian frog (Rana iberica) and the marbled newt (Triturus marmoratus).
In the river one finds one of the rare European populations of thick-shelled
river mussels (Margaritifera margaritifera).

Multiple Benefits
Contemporary history is paved with negative examples of humans exploiting,
and in the course destroying, the treasures of nature. The rich and unique hab-
itats of the Paiva River basin are viewed by many political decision makers as a

68
69
70
The Paiva River is approximately 110km long, traversing a pristine landscape characterized
by a stupendous natural wealth. The area is part of the EUs Natura 2000 network.

Page 72: The walkway was opened in June 2015, becoming an instant and tremendous suc-
cess. In less than three months it brought over 200,000 visitors to the region.

resource that needs to be used; environmental protection, in their eyes, is just

a stumbling block to economic development. We must be wary even of those
who do profess to be environmentally correct. Too many times we have seen
that the praise of sustainable development is nothing but lip service to green
ideals, which actually disguises the business-as-usual policies that are being
pursued by these seemingly environmentally minded decision makers. And
business as usual means that both biological diversity and the beauty of the
natural landscape are sacrificed on the altar of economic growth. To add more,
exploitation of natural resources often does not even mean that the
material gains reach those whose live in the area. Instead, material profit is fre-
quently drained away from the region, which is ultimately left depleted and
impoverished, the very opposite of what the growth model promised. Fortu-
nately, the way things went in the Paiva River basin has been quite different.
The Arouca municipality, one of the local governments responsible for man-
aging the areas natural resources, decided to apply a different model of
development to the river and its basin, viewing these assets of the region as
natural capital that needs to be preserved even as it is used. In 2010, the Paiva
Walkways project was launched, starting with a competition organized by the
Arouca local government. The task was to design 8.7 kilometers of boardwalk
along the left bank of the Paiva River. When the completed walkway was
opened in June 2015, it proved an instant and tremendous success. In less than
three months the new attraction brought over 200,000 visitors to the region. A
forest fire caused by arson led to partial destruction of the wooden structure,
forcing it to be closed in September 2015. However, the unexpected closure
was used to not only rebuild the 600-meter stretch lost to the fire, but also to
review and upgrade the management tools for the entire project, with the
intention of enhancing the safety of both the public and the environment. The
permissible number of visitors was capped at 3,500 per day. Monitoring pro-
cedures were significantly improved, allowing the project to become a public
investment that was environment-friendly and self-sustaining.

Erotic Slowness
The walkways impress visually by how well they blend in with the sur-
rounding landscape. The light and elegant wooden, serpent-like structure
meanders over the Paiva Rivers left bank, covering a distance of almost
9 km. The visitor can pick one of its two entries. The elevated path con-
nects Areinho River beach to the beach of Espiunca River and in between
these end points also passes by Vau River beach. The project was designed
to provide visitors with an intense visual experience of the landscape,
which gradually unfolds as the hikers slowly progress, step by step, on a
boardwalk comprising sharp zigzags, balconies, a suspension bridge, and
viewing points. Coming from Espiunca, the climbing is mild; at various

71
PAIVA WALKWAYS, PAIVA RIVER, PORTUGAL
Client: Municipality of Arouca, Portugal
Landscape architects: Nuno Melo, Joo Oliveira, Pedro Domingues
Structures: Fernando Domingues, Jos Oliveira, Ins Rodrigues, Rui Oliveira
Year of construction: 2015

places hikers are offered the opportunity of a swim in clearly identifiable

and monitored sites along the river. A narrow suspended footbridge pro-
vides dizzying views as it crosses a gorge. Hikers may also simply pause
and marvel at the bounty of colours, sounds and scents as they look from
one of the numerous balconies, wisely planted amongst the green of the
bushes and the grey of the old and silent cliffs. As they follow this enchanted
route, hikers are continuously surrounded by oaks, ashes, alders, rocks and
the restless waters of the Paiva River. Eventually, the visitor will reach a
flight of steep stairs that climb up to Areinho, the walkways upper gate.

Ecomomic Impacts
The Paiva River Walkways represent a design achievement that impresses
through its coherence and its sensitivity towards the natural environment in
which it is embedded and which it aims to protect and celebrate. As fragile
as the wood construction may appear, it convinces through engineering fea-
tures that fulfill all safety requirements and at the same time insert the struc-
ture into the landscapeso carefully as to keep disruption at a minimum. The
investments undergone to realize the Paiva Walkways project have paid off
well so far as they have created a significant boost to the local economy,
ranging from restaurants to small hotels to the creation of new small busi-
nesses. The visitors who come to experience the wonders of the Paiva River,
bring with them an influx of capital into the area that contributes directly to
the betterment of the quality of life of Aroucas citizens and families. This is
a case of clear evidence of the virtues of local public investment, in compar-
ison to alien investment, which tends to abuse local resources, while the
profits made are siphoned off, depriving the local economy and community
of potential benefits. Finally, it is important to underline that the Paiva Walk-
ways are the result of not only a coherent architectural concept, but also a
holistic and strategic long-term political vision for the community of Arouca.
The local government had been engaged in promoting and enhancing the
natural and geological richness of its territory for a long time. Many years
before the idea of building the walkways materialized, Arouca had already
been working very hard to become a member of the select and prestigious
club of the Unesco Global Geoparks Network, a goal that was eventually
achieved in 2009. In other words, the Paiva Walkways are not a sudden mir-
acle but a result of long-term planning and serious political resolve that vin-
dicates public interest in a sustainable use of the environment. Here local
institutions and citizens at large have had a word to say about their shared
future from the beginning. Paiva Walkways is an exemplary project that for
this region of northern Portugal will bring about opportunities for many
other inspiring learning experiences and whose appeal extends far beyond
its immediate locality.

72
73
Laura Cipriani

FLOAT I N G
AIRPORTS
Recent episodes have demonstrated the fragility of airport
nodes in the face of extreme weather events. But what does
that mean for the future? Can we envision a new alliance
between architecture, landscape architecture and water? The
disciplines of urbanism, architecture and landscape planning
will become of central importance in the choices to be made.

74
What will the airport of the future look like? Floating airports are based on a view of
water that does not see it as a threat but as an element to adapt to by oating.

75
 TSUNAMI
FLOODED
AIRPORTS

OVERFLOW

HURRICANE
RAINSTORM
SEPTEMBER 19 2004
Bloomsburg Municipal Airport, USA

FLOODED

Diagram by L. Cipriani.
AIRPORTS
DECEMBER 26 2004
Mal International Airport, MALDIVES
JANUARY 9 2005
Corona Municipal Airport, USA
AUGUST 29 2005
Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, USA
OCTOBER 3 2008
Chicago OHare International Airport, USA

Source data: Newspapers and magazines, 2004-2013.

AUGUST 4 2009
Louisville International Airport, USA
AUGUST 22 2009
Delhi International Airport Limited, INDIA
SEPTEMBER 16 2009
Palermo Falcone Borsellino Airport, ITALY
SEPTEMBER 29 2009
Pago Pago International Airport, American Samoa
MARCH 16 2010
Norwood Memorial Airport, USA
APRIL 4 2010
Norwood Memorial Airport, USA
JULY 23 2010
General Mitchell International Airport, USA
DECEMBER 21 2010
Corona Municipal Airport, USA

76
JANUARY 12 2011
Brisbane Airport, AUSTRALIA
JANUARY 22 2011
Rockhampton Airport, AUSTRALIA
MARCH 2 2011
Ancona Raffaello Sanzio Airport, ITALY
MARCH 11 2011
Sendai Airport, JAPAN
MARCH 31 2011
between the risk of ooding by tsunami, hurricane, rainstorm or river overow.

Whitsunday Coast Airport, AUSTRALIA

MARCH 31 2011
Koh Samui Airport, THAILAND
APRIL 16 2011
Harrisburg International Airport, USA
The diagram lists airports that, according to international press sources, were temporarily
declared inoperative due to water damage among them mayor airports across the world.

The diagram also gives an overview of the threat of sea level rise to airports. It distinguishes

MAY 10 2011
General DeWitt Spain Airport, USA
JUNE 6 2011
Firenze Amerigo Vespucci Airport, ITALY
JUNE 12 2011
Eppley Airfield, USA
AUGUST 29 2011
Teterboro Airport, USA
SEPTEMBER 15 2011
Delhi International Airport Limited, INDIA
OCTOBER 25 2011
Don Muang Airport, THAILAND
OCTOBER 25 2011
Dublin Airport, IRELAND
NOVEMBER 4 2011
Genoa Cristoforo Colombo Airport, ITALY
NOVEMBER 6 2011
Bari Palese Airport, ITALY
NOVEMBER 7 2011
Elba Island Airport, ITALY
NOVEMBER 28 2011
Chennai Airport, INDIA
MARCH 8 2012
Catania Fontanarossa Airport, ITALY
AUGUST 13 2012
Canefield Airport, DOMINICA
AUGUST 30 2012
New Orleans Lakefront Airport, USA
SEPTEMBER 26 2012
Ronald Reagan Washinton National Airport, USA
SEPTEMBER 29, 2012
Valencia Airport, SPAIN
OCTOBER 29 2012
La Guardia Airport, New York USA
John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK)
NOVEMBER 17 2012
Malaga Airport, SPAIN
NOVEMBER 30, 2012
Sonoma Valley Airport, USA
JANUARY 13 2013
Jakarta airport, INDONESIA
Recent empirical evidence and scientific data suggest that climate change is
happening with now irreversible dynamics. Numerous effects will have con-
sequences for the territory, for cities and for infrastructure itself, not the least
important being airports, considering the fundamental role air transport
plays in todays world. The airport of the future will necessarily be re-shaped
and transformed in a changing climate. Airports are, in fact, highly vulnera-
ble infrastructures requiring precise adaptation and mitigation strategies at
various levels. Recurrent floods, rising seas, desertification, land impover-
ishment and more generally extreme meteorological events can temporarily
or permanently compromise mobility networks and spaces.
Three Principal Issues
Within this complex situation, three principal issues must be clarified. The
first concerns the uncertainty and variability of scientific predictions on
future climate change. We know that during the next few years and
decades the sea level will rise, extreme events will become even more fre-
quent and intense, and temperature changes, increased precipitation and
drought cycles will affect various parts of the planet. Despite a widely
shared awareness of the climate change underway, we do not know, how-
ever, when and with what intensity it will occur in the coming years. More-
over, the data currently available indicate that the dynamics of climate
transformation are much more rapid than initially predicted. The second
concern focuses on the fact that the effects of climate change are particu-
larly insidious for transport infrastructure, which typically have a long life
cycle. The life span of ports, bridges, roads, railways and airports usually
vary from a minimum of 30 to a maximum of 200 years. Much of the
infrastructure existing today or currently being designed will still be in use
by 2030 or 2050 when climate change could have a much greater effect
than at present. The third issue therefore concerns the degree of uncertainty
that infrastructure in general must confront before, during and after its life
cycle; the focus here is on how to limit the economic, social and environ-
mental damage. It has been calculated that the annual financial losses
deriving from extreme meteorological phenomena have increased appre-
ciably from a few billion dollars in 1980 to about 200 billion in 2010.
Flooded Airport Urbanism
Design or re-design of the territory and infrastructure elements must
therefore be redefined. In the foreseeable future, the disciplines of urban
and landscape planning will become of central importance in the choices
to be made regarding both new infrastructure sites and the adaptation of
existing infrastructure to the changed environmental conditions, with
soft green measures to be implemented alongside traditional engineer-
ing choices (hard measures). But if the climate will inevitably change
the design process, what will the airport of the future be like? Can we
imagine an airport infrastructure adaptable to the changing climate and
landscape? Today many airports in the world are located along the coast
or on plains at high risk from flooding. Exceptional precipitation and
floods, not to mention tornadoes, hurricanes and tsunamis, can all cause
infrastructure to become partially or totally unusable. La Guardia at New
York, Don Muang at Bangkok, Sendai in Japan and Brisbane in Australia
are just some of the airports that had to be temporarily closed in recent
years due to a range of extreme weather events. Historic records of mete-
orological events affecting New York show a string of hurricanes over the
years hitting the city and the state, and already in the past making the air-
ports of La Guardia and J. F. Kennedy inoperative. The administrative
authorities of the regions regularly affected are almost always aware of the
type and scale of potential risks for urbanised areas. But often when
extreme meteorological phenomena occur, there is a clear lack of coordi-
nation among the institutions and authorities involved. In many cases, the
damage extends to the entire mobility network. Not just airports, but also
underground and above-ground railways and roads are flooded by water, with
such circumstances causing various degrees of disruption and devastation.
Exposure and Vulnerability
Those most exposed to these phenomena are the infrastructure and pop-
ulations of Southeast Asia, the archipelagos consisting of atolls, and the
regions lining the Gulf of Mexico. But also countries such as the Nether-
lands, Italy, Greece, Portugal, Egypt, other regions of the United States,
Papua New Guinea and Australia are affected by these events. As stated by
the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the scientific forum
formed in 1988 to study climate change, the seriousness of the impacts of
extreme weather events depends greatly on exposure and vulnerability.
Both man-made and natural risks are, in fact, interpreted as consequent
to the stresses and pressures affecting a given area (dangerousness), the
quantity and type of elements (presence of people, services, environmen-
tal resources, infrastructure, economic, social or cultural elements)
potentially affected (exposure) and the propensity for damage of those
elements (vulnerability). Given a similar event, different landscape sys-
tems may suffer widely diverging degrees of damage, according to the
quantity and characteristics of the local elements exposed. Everything
that is apparently unexpected can often, in fact, be partially planned. The
planners must therefore adopt a case-by-case strategy for the landscape,
which will involve short, medium and long-term scenarios.
77
Floating Airport Urbanism
While, on one hand, water threatens the operation of airports in particular cli-
mate conditions, there is a small number of airports around the world that
have been defined correctly or incorrectly as floating airports. Although they
actually stand on artificial islands, Kansai International Airport (at Osaka in
Japan) and Hong Kong International Airport have become symbols of techno-
logical adaptation to nature. Some of these structures were initially designed as
refuelling bases for transoceanic crossings, then converted into airports with
the goal of distancing air traffic movements from the mainland in order to
reduce acoustic and environmental impacts. No genuine floating airports have
yet been built, they have merely been studied by engineering science. Even so,
the existing artificial island structures have become emblematic of a new
union between architecture, landscape and water. Real floating airports must
not be imagined literally as a banal technical and technological solution, but
rather viewed figuratively as a new way of interacting with the given circum-
stances of coastal regions. Defensive measures cannot be the only solution to
oppose water, as sooner or later nature will get the better. We are currently wit-
nessing a radical paradigm change in the way the subject is approached. Water
is no longer seen as a threat to be protected against, instead it is viewed as an
element that stimulates adaptation to living with it and on it, by floating.
A Concept of Resilience
Certain cities have always had to adapt to and live with water, giving rise to a
genuine floating urbanism. Take for example an amphibious city such as
Venice, certain cities in the Netherlands, the floating gardens of Myanmar, or
numerous examples of pile dwellings from the Alps to the Padana Plain in
Italy. There are also examples of floating airports built from the late 1970s,
largely in East Asia and Southeast Asia in Japan, apart from Kansai Interna-
tional, Chubu Centrair International, Kobe Kitakyushu and Tokyo Haneda
International; in China, in addition to Hong Kong International, Macau Inter-
national. These structures seem to be an expression of the concept of resilience,
at least in theory. Applied here to the urban context, resilience is a notion that
has been borrowed from studies on how ecological systems react to stress and
disturbance caused by external factors. Far from being truly resilient, the con-
cept of floating airport can instead be used as a symbol to give space to water
in urban structures. From an ecological point of view, C. S. Holling, one of the
founders of ecological economics, was the first to talk about the topic in 1973,
suggesting that resilience is the persistence of relationships within a system
and the ability of these systems to absorb changes of state variables, driving
variables, and parameters, and still persist. In other words, resilience is the
ability of a system to suffer disturbance and maintain its functions and control.
78
Fertile Ground
Although the overall picture of climatic/weather phenomena in an urban
context is complex, and the various elements require study at regional scales,
airport systems and structures can be brought into a framework of global
strategies and precise adaptation measures on various scales. According to
the definition of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in
natural and human systems, adaptation is the process of adjustment to
actual or expected climate and its effects, in order to moderate harm or
exploit beneficial opportunities. Adaptation (in terms of scale, usually involv-
ing regional and local circumstances) must not exclude mitigation, the latter
being understood as an anthropogenic intervention to reduce the sources or
enhance the sinks of greenhouse gases. Together they can significantly
reduce the risks deriving from climate change. To prepare the territory and
construct resilient infrastructure and cities largely means identifying suitable
prevention measures on the various scales of action to help mitigate the
effects deriving from the rigidity of urban and infrastructural systems.
Short, medium and long-term scenarios and large-scale strategic plan-
ning are the first necessary steps to the construction of resilient airports
a strategy that has to be combined with effective design tactics. In airports,
for example, runways, terminal roofs, roads and large areas of hard stand-
ing prevent rainwater from percolating into the subsoil, also contributing
to water pollution given the high concentrations of heavy metals, oil,
grease and antifreeze liquid. In addition, rainwater runs off these impervi-
ous surfaces rapidly, flooding pipes and canals, contributing to erosion and
accumulating pollution as it flows. In response to this runoff problem,
numerous architectural and landscape solutions have been developed to
slow down the rate of flow and absorb this excess water. Water manage-
ment techniques compensate for peaks caused by the excessively impervi-
ous surfaces (runways, structures, car parks, etc.); they also increase effi-
ciency and save water. Green roofs can improve permeability (which also
reduces noise); bioswales or rain gardens can be used to collect rainwater
in vegetated ditches in place of surface waterways or underground storm
sewers. Settlement tanks or wetlands can be constructed upstream of the
airport area if not inside the airport itself, where water bodies must be
meticulously covered to avoid birdstrike with aircraft. Porous asphalt
allows rainwater to percolate at least into the subsoil under the runways.
In an era dominated by uncertainty about tomorrow and by a race
towards real or presumed sustainability, infrastructure must be re-planned,
not just to accommodate todays technological functions or contingent
needs, but also with a view to possible future recycling, generating a method
for re-inventing the landscape, which may thereby become fertile ground
for the unexpected.
 A small number of airports have been dened as oating airports. They stand on articial
islands and have become symbols of a new union between architecture, landscape and water.

Japan's Kansai International is a oating airport. It was designed as refuelling base for
transoceanic crossings, then turned into an airport further removed from the city of Osaka.

AIRPORTS ON
ARTIFICIAL ISLANDS

IBRAHIM CHUBU TOKYO

NAGASAKI NASIR KANSAI MACAU HONG KONG CENTRAIR KOBE KITAKYUSHU INTERNATIONAL
AIRPORT INTERNATIONAL INTERNATIONAL INTERNATIONAL INTERNATIONAL INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT AIRPORT HANEDA
RJFU VRMM RJBB VMMC VHHH RJGG RJBE RJFR RJTT

0 0

5 5

15 Km 15 Km

2004 1981 1987 1995 1998 2005 2006 2006 2010

offshore runway
year 2011

year 2011

1.54 km 2 1.80 km 2 10.62 km 2 1.14 km 2 12.29 km 2 5.80 km 2 2.80 km 2 3.73 km 2 1.50 km 2

2 637 000 2 600 000 13 857 000 5 000 000 53 314 213 9 060 000 2 215 000 3 000 000 64 211 074
passengers passengers passengers passengers passengers passengers passengers passengers passengers
year 2004 year 2011 year 2010 year 2006 year 2011 year 2011 year 2011 year 2007 year 2010

N.A. N.A. 712 000 220 000 3 939 000 151 000 N.A. N.A. 818 806
tons tons tons tons tons
year 2010 year 2006 year 2011 year 2011 year 2010

KANSAI
KANSAI
INTERNATIONAL
AIRPORT

CONSTRUCTION
21 000 000 48 000 80 10 000
NUMBERS CUBIC METERS
OF LANDFILL
TETRAHEDRAL
CONCRETE BLOCKS
SHIPS WORKERS WORKED

10 000 000
HOURS IN 3 YEARS

79
Stefan Tischer,
Francesca Arici

SICILIAN
Minimalism
The seafront of Balestrate in northwestern Sicily is a thin
white strip of land between the towns geometric pattern
and the sea. Along that strip a new promenade has been
opened, consisting of few elements and built entirely with
local materials. The subtle design of the space enhances the
landscape and the natural features of the site.

80
The last decade has witnessed a phenomenon of re-appropriation of a few signicant public
spaces along the coast of northwestern Sicily. The promenade of Balestrate is a case in point.

81
Balestrate is a town of about 6000 inhabitants. The new promenade at rst elicited strong
opposition by the local population but now enjoys widespread appreciation.

82
With an area of 25,000 square kilometres and a population of five million,
the island of Sicily is one of the most densely populated regions in Europe,
if one allows for the fact that the majority of its inhabitants reside along the
coast and large swaths of the interior are virtually uninhabited. Palermo is
the capital of the region, with a metropolitan area spanning along the
northern coast of the island for some 110 square kilometres. Since the late
20th century there has been a peculiar attitude of neglect of the formerly
remarkable public spaces inherited from the past. For most people
public means nobodys instead of everyones.

Segregation from the sea. In Palermo the public space is the waterfront.
The social degradation of the meaning of public values manifests itself in
the citys conflicting relationship with this space. After the Second World War,
the waterfront was used as a dump both for solid waste and for the debris
left by the war; the sea was segregated from the land by a successive expansion
of the disconnected commercial port and, above all, by an extensive private
appropriation of coastal areas for the development of second houses or exclu-
sive clubs. The railway and the highway run parallel to the coastline for the
entire length of the northern coast, creating a continuous linear urbanized pat-
tern, occasionally interrupted by the topography or by protected natural areas.

Connecting to the sea. The last decade has witnessed the start of a phe-
nomenon of re-appropriation of a few significant public spaces on the
waterfront. One example is the commendable redevelopment of La Cala,
the old port of Palermo, designed by architects Sebastiano Provenzano and
Giulia Argiroffi. Most of these interventions have remained isolated facelifts
basically unable to trigger momentous or strategic change. The bombastic
restyling of the urban seafront, the Foro Italico by architect Italo Rota,

83
completely missed the opportunity to address the urgent issues of the citys
infrastructure, choosing instead scatter expensive ceramic bollards across
the large site. Interestingly, however, this recent trend has shown the eager-
ness of the local population to re-conquer space in contact with the sea.
More than by the public administrations, this need is now understood by
the private sector. A diffuse investment in bars and catering services along
the coast has been opening up the denied sea to public access.

A unique case. In this context, the project for Balestrate a small coastal
town of about 6,000 inhabitants to the west of Palermos airport appears as a
unique case. The skill of AM3 Architects and Studio Cangemi, originally
appointed by the Municipality for detail design services only, achieved maxi-
mum result through minimum use of public resources. This is even truer
when acknowledging the political context of the project: a conflictive demo-
cratic terrain where an enlightened minority overcame the opposition of the
local majoritys resistance to change. The plan, with small but significant
changes to the state of the place, intended to preserve and enhance the land-
scape and the natural features of the site, mitigating the environmental impact
of the coastline road. The design focused on the creation of a promenade in
straight contact with the beach, limiting the presence of artificial structures.
The project reduced the environmental impact of the seafront road and
instead favored non-vehicular uses of the site. All newly designed elements on
the seafront were constructed according to the principle of easy reversibility.

Constitutive elements. What originally appeared as a simple intervention

of emergency maintenance became an operation of environmental and urban
redevelopment of this coastal space. This result was accomplished through
the integration of all the infrastructural elements the road, the drainage

84
The redesign restricted itself to subtle interventions. Among these are the so-called sea-
plazas, enlargements of the promenade that create belvederes over the beach.

85
Bridges, benches and street lights are constitutive elements of the site. The promenade pav-
ing was replaced by a covering of in-situ cast concrete with quarry aggregates and sand.

86
system, the street lighting into the design as constitutive elements of the site.
While the overall width of the roadway was not changed, a considerable
enlargement of the sidewalks was achieved by eliminating the existing unor-
ganized and spontaneous line of parking stalls along the seaside, with a con-
sequent reduction of the road section and of the asphalted surface.

A new public space. The resulting pedestrian and bicycle promenade

has an average width of 2.30 metres, reaching 8 metres at some specific
points, the sea-plazas. These areas enlarge the promenade and create
belvederes over the beach and offer places for rest without using a new
language of design. The promenade paving was replaced by a covering of
in-situ cast concrete with quarry aggregates and sand, which was then
washed to bring the aggregates to sight. The access points to the sea were
made conveniently usable by the installation of walkways made of lamel-
lar wood and stainless steel. In order to limit the impact of the new con-
structions on the site, a new surface of local stone was laid, with the pur-
pose of protecting the retaining wall of the road from potential sagging,
and defining the boundary of the beach in a more natural way.
The local population at first manifested strong opposition against the
project, mostly because a sizable number of parking spaces were eliminated.
But meanwhile the project has become widely appreciated, for the rede-
velopment has significantly upgraded the seafront, both esthetically and
with regard to its value as a public space. In this way, the architects were
able to achieve a maximum result with minimal intervention. Even under
the difficult circumstances of an unfair and petty administrative practice
on the part of the municipal client, who neither mandated nor paid the
planners for preliminary or definitive design work, a truly high-quality
public space was created.

BALESTRATE SEAFRONT, SICILY, ITALY

Client: Municipality of Balestrate
Design team: AM3 Architetti Associati, Studio Cangemi
Year of construction: 2014

87
A spectacular new public promenade by the River Rhine near the Novartis Campus in Basel
connects Switzerland with France. Curved walls weave the various different levels together.

88
Claudia Moll

B E T W E E N
COUNTRIES
A public footpath and cycleway has recently opened in a
border region on the River Rhine. While the Swiss part of the
project incorporates an elaborate promenade, the French side
represents a much-reduced extension of this transnational
initiative. Despite these notable differences, the venture
should certainly still be regarded as an urban achievement,
creating connections across borders and opening up a section
of the riverbank that had remained inaccessible for decades.

89
RHINE BANK PROMENADE, BASEL, SWITZERLAND
Client: Kanton Basel-Stadt, Novartis Pharma AG
Landscape architect: Hager Partner AG, Zrich
Year of construction: 2016
Imposing walls level out height differences of up to 12 metres between the
city and the water in the area stretching from the Dreirosenbrcke (three
roses) bridge in Basel to the French border. These partitions divide the river-
side, which is 30 metres wide in places, into a flood-safe promenade and the
deeper-lying Bermenweg path. This is where a series of gates and showers
embedded in the walls await swimmers who enjoy the waters of the Rhine.
The paved promenade opens out into small gravel areas on the upper level.
Curved wooden benches nestled under sparse willows and alders offer pass-
ers-by the chance to stop and enjoy a clear view of the fast-flowing river.
Stairs and ramps lead from the Dreirosenbrcke bridge down to the water
and weave the various different levels together. The promenade is part of the
public footpath and cycleway that continues on the French side. It forms part
of the European EuroVelo 15 cycle route, which extends along the Rhine
from the Swiss village of Andermatt all the way up to the North Sea.
The most striking feature of the promenade on the Swiss side is without
doubt the glowing yellow limestone. Curved walls are covered in narrow,
vertically arranged stone bands that give them an almost textile appearance.
The restaurant in the middle with a huge terrace has echoes of the Mediter-
ranean. It is housed in the base of the Asklepios 8 office block from Herzog
& de Meuron, which was opened a year ago. Together with a series of archi-
tectural gems, squares and green areas, it is now part of the Campus of
Knowledge that has evolved above the promenade since 2011 on the site of
the Novartis pharmaceutical companys former St Johann factory complex.
Archologische Guckrohre (archaeological telescopes), a project from the
Basel scenographers Stauffenegger + Stutz, harks back to the Celtic settle-
ment that was established in 100 BC in the area around the modern-day
Dreirosenbrcke bridge. It can certainly take some getting used to the thirty
infrared cameras mounted on masts lining the promenade path. They ges-
ture towards the Novartis Campus like powerful neighbours whose main
priority is to protect the important research location. They also leave those
people visiting the elegant walkway with a slightly ambiguous feeling. Just
how public are public spaces these days? What is allowed, what is forbidden
and how far should each step be registered and recorded? Just a few metres
after the border, the contrast could hardly be greater. A simple asphalt road
represents the continuation of the promenade on the French side. A meadow
90
slopes steeply down to the river, free from steps or ramps. Move a little fur-
ther along and the trail passes industrial sites that are still in operation,
where two concrete walls have been erected to protect pedestrians and
cyclists. Six feet tall and ten and seventeen feet long, these massive struc-
tures separate the public space from the land belonging to BASF, which is
classified as a risk zone. Shortly before the Dreilnderbrcke bridge, the
road turns into a path that has been integrated into the embankment due to
a lack of space. The austere engineering structure will soon become more
interesting. The IBA Basel launched a competition in 2015 for landmark
design ideas and the winning project will be realised in the coming year.
The new link eventually connects to the existing cycleway, which leads into
the heart of the French Huningue suburb of Basel.
From gasworks to research campus
The new footpath and cycleway is very much an urban achievement. It
opens up part of the riverbank that had remained closed to the public for
the last 150 years. The urban turning point on the Swiss side goes back to
1860, when Basels first gasworks, which since 1852 had been located close
to the centre, was moved to the edge of the city near the French border. The
meadows, pastures and vineyards that marked the border area had to give
way to industry, but the location offered several logistical advantages. The
close proximity to the St Johann cargo station guaranteed optimum rail
connections and coal required for production could be delivered directly by
ship. In addition, both solid and liquid waste materials were eventually dis-
charged directly into the water. Ownership of the private gas plant passed
to the municipal authorities in 1886, before the city of Basel constructed St
Johann Harbour as the first of a series of three Rhine ports at the beginning
of the 20th century. After the closure of the gasworks in the early 1900s, dye
and colorant industries began to spring up in the area. In the following
years these small businesses expanded in line with the increasing amount of
shipping entering the river port. The riverbank remained largely closed to
pedestrians. The public path on the Swiss side ended in the shadow of the
huge St Johannes-Parkweg residential development, which was built shortly
before the Dreirosenbrcke bridge in the 1980s. The nature of the urban f
A series of stairs connect the different levels of the promenade. Curved wooden benches
offer passers-by the chance to stop, relax and enjoy a clear view of the fast-owing river.

91
The promenade is part of the public footpath and cycleway that continues on the French
side. It forms part of the European EuroVelo 15 cycle route that extends along the Rhine.

92
93
VOIE VERTE HUNINGUE, HUNINGUE, FRANCE
Client: Conseil Departemental Haut-Rhin
Engineering: gis, Strasbourg
Year of construction: 2016
development on the French side was similar, with chemical industries set-
tling on the banks of the Rhine. The residential areas of the French-Swiss
agglomeration area started to appear between the industrial plants, of
which just two are still in operation. Over the years these areas slowly crept
down to the Rhine and merged into a dense residential belt.
In 2005 things gradually started to change. The Novartis organisation,
which now occupied the former gasworks industrial site, entered into negoti-
ations with the Basel-Stadt Canton (Basel metropolitan county). The pharma-
ceutical company wanted to acquire the port area and transform the manufac-
turing base, which had grown haphazardly on both sides of the border, into a
large research campus. The canton accepted the proposal and sold most of the
site, although a thin sliver of the riverbank remained in their possession. In
return Novartis agreed to help support the construction of a long-coveted
public promenade. The different interests came together in a joint project
called Campus Plus, which the two parties used to pursue their goals on the European Union, the Communaut de Communes de Trois Frontires (the
one hand, the expansion of the pharmaceutical company campus down to the
Rhine, and on the other, direct access to the river combined with a continuous
public path. The design for the Swiss promenade section was finalised as early
as 2007. The Staubli + Kurath civil and hydraulic engineering office and the
Zurich landscape architects Hager Partner engaged in a multi-stage competi-
tion process. The designers used their work to try and symbolise the current of
the river, with gently curving walls, paths and ramps forming a core central
aspect. Where obstacles such as the Dreirosenbrcke bridge or campus build-
ings had to be taken into account, the contours simply became even more pro-
nounced. A quick comparison between the visualisations created for the selec-
tion process and the actual project is certainly quite impressive. Despite a plan-
ning phase that lasted almost ten years, the landscape architects succeeded in
translating their finely detailed image directly into reality. Although this defi-
nitely represents an outstanding piece of design, the final result sometimes
seems to prioritise order and formality. The promenade has become a specta-
cle in places less would indeed have been more. The process was very differ-
ent on the French side, where planning for the footpath and cycleway only
really started once the finishing touches were being added to the Swiss prom-
enade. No competition was held to design the infrastructure, so engineering
companies were offered the chance to apply for the publicly tendered project.
94
The contract was awarded to the gis France global consortium, which set
about devising a concept for the footpath and cycleway that took a functional
approach to dealing with local conditions. The project managers presented
their ideas to local people in September 2014 and the project was finally initi-
ated around a year and a half later.
Solidarity despite the differences
The respective planning costs on each side of the border once again reflect
two widely divergent approaches. Canton Basel invested jointly with Novar-
tis around 25 million euros in its 600-metre-long Rhine promenade, while 4
million euros were sufficient for almost 2 kilometres on the French side of the
border. Along with the Huningue municipal authorities and the Dpartement
du Haut-Rhin, the costs were shared between the Basel-Stadt Canton, the
commune community of the three borders) and the Novartis company. So
why are the two sections so strikingly different? Can the variation on each
side of the national boundary be explained by divergent planning cultures?
No, according to Guirec Gicquel, who is responsible for the landscape proj-
ects at IBA Basel, which supported the initiative. It was more the different
overall conditions that led to the aforementioned financial
imbalance, as well as varying usage of the waterfront sections. While the
industry on the Swiss side made room for a new urban function, the active
factories on French soil were until now more of an obstacle. The land here is
also held by a number of different owners, which would have complicated a
project with high artistic standards in the time period available.
Despite the many differences, Gicquel is at pains to highlight just what has
been achieved by working together. For a start, there is the urban success of
reopening the riverside to the public between Basel and Huningue. In addi-
tion, the cross-border cooperation between authorities and planners, as well
as the commitment and motivation to connect interests, people and facilities
at a regional level, should certainly not be overlooked. For the organisers of
the IBA, this alliance therefore represents a showpiece initiative a belief that
convinced Managing Director Monica Linder-Guarnaccia to mark the offi-
cial opening by awarding the Rheinuferweg project the IBA Base Label.
The promenade continues on the French side with a simple asphalt path to Huningue. There
was no competition held to design the infrastructure and its surroundings.

95
Multiple Modality:
a Travel Report
An urban planner travels a lot: Kees Christiaanses projects have repeatedly lead
him through Central Europe where he observes the changing mobility-systems. In
this article he talks about how itineraries change and what impact this often has
on urbanisation, infrastructure, architecture and the landscape.
Kees Christiaanse Amsterdams central station is connected to the
European high-speed network, which can be
understood as a part of an urban model. In this
model, local centres that have high densities of
supply form a complementary polycentric sys-
tem, both in terms of Western Europe as well as
within their own agglomerations. The failure to
construct a high-speed rail link from Amsterdam
to the German border is therefore one of the
many shortsighted decisions made in the history
of mobility in Holland. As a result, an ICE travel-
ling to Frankfurt must first travel through Arn-
hem to the Dutch border at a snails pace of 130
km/h. Upon reaching the border, it can
accelerate to about 250 km/h the average speed
of the German high-speed network.
96
ICE VS. TGV. The train ride from Amsterdam to
Zurich takes about eight hours whether one uses
the German or the French rail network. Travel-
ling with the TGV from Paris is about 250 km
longer, however, and there is still time for a caf
au lait avec croissant between the Gare du Nord
and the Gare de Lyon train stations. In addition
to the TGVs higher-speed, this fact can also be
attributed to fundamental differences between
the Dutch-German-Swiss high-speed network
and the French high-speed network. All three of
the aforementioned countries have more cities
than France and the ICE always travels through
each citys main train station. In France the SNCF
decided that the TGV would travel past fewer
cities, and thus the train stations need to serve
KCAP Architects & Planners developed a new master plan for Montpellier that calls for a
framework of public space. The TGV station is one of the projects main components.

97
several cities simultaneously. The differences in
these systems have also resulted in different
forms of urbanisation. Stopping in urban centres
makes these cities more accessible, promoting
urbanisation in the areas around the railway sta-
tions as a result of their proximity to downtown
areas and the location of urban functions in
them. Conversely, stopping at stations that are
close to but not in cities does indeed increase
the speed between stations but not necessarily
the speed between city centres. And while the
areas around the train stations in the urban cen-
tres may have developed less intensively, the
TGV stations except for airport-railway combi-
nations have now become interurban industrial
parks that required the construction of additional
shuttles into the cities.
A remote-control underground system. The
central train station in Zurich should be men-
tioned as a positive example of the Dutch-Ger-
man-Swiss model. This is where ICE and TGV
trains arrive shoulder to shoulder. The main
hall of Zurichs central station is open, as the
rails have been pushed back about 100 metres.
The resulting space has become a lively location
for public events, where Christmas markets,
concerts and trade fairs take place. The build-
ings flanking the central space contain the usual
functions, i.e. two good restaurants, a medical
centre and spa facilities. The labyrinthine Shop-
Ville shopping centre is located below the main
hall and is open day and night. The large rail-
head station sits atop a transit station serving
numerous commuter trains arriving from the
98
surrounding metropolitan area. The catchment
area for this S-Bahn system is unique. It func-
tions like a remote-control underground sys-
tem: Trains head out at 30-minute intervals and
after a 15-minute ride, passengers arrive in idyl-
lic suburbs around which well-structured urban
expansion is thriving. This type of development
is in stark contrast to the desolate train stations
in the Dutch Vinex neighbourhoods, which are
large-scale and monofunctional.
Stopping in the middle of nowhere. From
Zurich to Montpellier the TGV is the only
option for travel. It runs through Basel-Mul-
house, Besanon Franche-Comt and Lyon
Part-Dieu to Montpellier. In Besanon the train
stops in the middle of a forest, 15 kilometres
away from the city, and new passengers appear
as if out of nowhere an extreme example of
SNCF policies. The station itself consists of
little more than a parking area and a bus stop.
Another example is the railway station at
Valence one of the most bizarre places along
the TGV network. The station is located 12 kilo-
metres from Valence, in the middle of nowhere.
This train accident inspired by Zaha Hadid
appears to arise out of nowhere as well. The
tracks here run through a large trench. The
middle track runs through a concrete enclosure
and is used by the TGV, which can rush past at
full speed. The actual train station appears to
float on top of this concrete box, which is con-
nected to the surrounding area by bridges. A
track for local trains crosses the train station
diagonally. All these various levels are connected
by Piranesi-like stairways. The railway station is
practically surrounded by...nothing: a large as-
phalt surface, a bus stop, an empty office build-
ing and an Etap Hotel without any staff.
In Montpellier the TGV reaches its final stop
at the Gare Saint-Roche, near the Place de la
Comedie. Beginning in 2017 the TGVs will no
longer arrive here, however. The railway station
will only serve regional trains, even though
Montpellier is a prosperous city, with a university,
high-tech companies and tourism. There is a lively
architectural culture in the city, with residential
areas developed by Christian de Potzamparc,
Rob Krier and Ricardo Bofill, and buildings
designed by Jean Nouvel and Zaha Hadid. To the
south, the city is bordered by the A9 motorway
and then there is a 2 kilometre-wide belt of great
scenic interest. Montpelliers airport is located
here along with commercial areas and event
halls, and a narrow strip of sand that separates
the lagoon from the ocean. During the summer
Montpellier also serves as a transfer hub between
the Maghreb countries low-cost airlines and
those airlines and railways serving Northwest
Europe. This type of movement can be observed
at other places in the network as well, for instance
in Lyon-St Exupery. Eindhoven Airport is even
considered to be an important stopover for
human trafficking.
Central decisions. It was recently decided that a
new TGV line will be built between Nimes and
Barcelona, as should a new A9 through the beau-
tiful landscape that separates Montpellier from its
airport. This is where the new Montpellier TGV
The central train station in Zurich is as a positive example of the Dutch-German-Swiss mod-
el of railway transportation. The main hall has become a lively location for public events.

99
railway station will be built. Decisions about rural
infrastructure in France are generally made as a
result of central planning. Local communities,
however, are very interested in both the TGV net-
work and motorways especially because of the
economic advantages that such connections pro-
vide. The fact that the TGV in Montpellier will
not run through the city via St. Roche has mainly
to do with the simultaneous construction of the
new motorway, but is also a result of aforemen-
tioned SNCF policies and the high cost of con-
verting the inner-city line.
The end of the railhead. From Montpellier I
would like to go back to the Netherlands, and
specifically to our office in Rotterdam. The
flight with Air France to Amsterdam via Paris
is not terribly attractive because of poor con-
nections and the high price. But in the summer
this trip is easy: With Transavia there is a
direct flight to Rotterdam. In the autumn it
gets more difficult, though. Then I have to fly
to Brussels or Charleroi with Ryanair, take a
shuttle to Brussels-South and finally take the
Thalys high-speed train to Rotterdam. As an
alternative, I can take the train to Marseille
and then fly with Ryanair to Eindhoven, the
Dutch low-budget air traffic hub designed by
KCAP and De Bever Architects. The rest of the
year I have to rely on the TGV that runs
through Paris. I decide to take the train from
Montpellier and travel north. The trip from
Bordeaux to Rotterdam first goes, as usual
(and with time for a caf avec croissant), to
Paris Montparnasse and then to Gare du Nord.
100
These Grand Gares are still unique central
structures in Pariss urban landscape. Given
the current developments within the network,
however, railheads can only survive as final
destinations if they are located in very dense
areas of cities or, as is the case with Zurich
and Stuttgart 21, if great pressure is brought to
bear and they are converted into transit sta-
tions. The rest of these stations are unfortu-
nately dead ends, which in the Parisian con-
text becomes painfully clear due to the great
increase of through trains at stations like
Marne la Valle und Roissy-Charles de Gaulle.
The Thalys doesnt even stop at Euralille, one of
the first modern railway stations.
The privatisation of mobility. The journey
ends at Rotterdam Centraal, a beautiful new cen-
tral station that has emerged from the ruins of the
former station designed by Van Ravesteyn, which
was also quite beautiful. The large new shopping
centre under the tracks is a precise urban inter-
vention, with public areas and strong connections
to the surrounding parts of the city all activated
by retail sales and restaurants. Rotterdams entire
centre has become a huge railway station central-
ity due to the extension of the underground and
light rail system to The Hague, and the high-
speed line that connects the city with Schiphol
Airport. There is one thing the city didnt count
on, though: Since the introduction of electronic
tickets, the pedestrian passage between Rotter-
dam Centre and Rotterdam North is blocked by
two smart card batteries. It is therefore only possi-
ble to go through the passage when checking in or
out. And thus the privatisation of public space has
already begun here. An urban planner who works
on projects scattered all over Europe is continually
on the lookout for the best route to take. The fast-
est way often involves a combination of modes of
travel, so-called multiple modality. The fastest
and least expensive way of getting from Zurich to
Brittany is to take the train to Basel, fly to Nantes
with Easyjet, and then to drive a hired car to
Vannes. This is twice as fast as using the TGV and
costs half as much. There are many examples of
such trajectories that confirm the fact that high-
speed trains and air transport are not competi-
tors, but can instead complement each other as
part of a future concept of European mobility. The
increasing combination of airports, railway sta-
tions and urban centrality is thus a sensible devel-
opment. In spite of the TGVs higher speed, the
central European model of ICEs with their sta-
tions in urban centres is therefore the preferable
way to go. It would activate urban centres in a sus-
tainable manner and promotes the use of regional
public transport as opposed to individual
motorised transport. Fast links that provide unin-
terrupted connections to airports must therefore
be provided. Large airports like Amsterdam,
Brussels, Paris, Zurich and Frankfurt should have
full-service Intercity railway stations. This kind of
organisation forms the basis upon which the mul-
tiple modality of future forms of mobility can be
built in a complementary way.
This article is based on one that appeared in the
June 2013 edition of the Dutch architecture maga-
zine deArchitect.
Rotterdam Centraal has emerged from the ruins of the former station designed by Sybold
Van Ravesteyn. The large shopping centre under the tracks is a precise urban intervention.

101
CURRENTS PRODUCTS
PRODUCTS
More risk-taking for children
The popularity of theme play-
grounds is increasing. Swings,
seesaws, sand boxes thats the
way things used to be. Theme
playgrounds are now the order
of the day when it comes to
providing children with oppor-
tunities to play and exercise.
And, it is even better when such
facilities are integrated into the
local environment, i.e make use
of existing topography and nat-
ural materials such as stones,
plants, soil and especially water.
102
Cities and communities around
the world have recognised this,
as have operators of tourist
resorts, amusement parks and
camp grounds. Those interested
in attracting families have to
expand the range of activities
they offer children.
But what are the current trends
concerning this type of play-
ground? Although there doesnt
appear to be any one particular
direction, its clear that the mar-
ket for indoor playgrounds
continues to grow, especially in
Europe. In Asia, Australia and
the United States, on the other
hand, large playgrounds with a
wide range of activities for play
and movement are increasingly
common. Here, there is a ten-
dency to build progressively
bigger and higher play equip-
ment that often involves the
use of climbing nets.
The willingness to design play-
grounds that enable children
to take risks is also growing.
David Hannah
This involves risks, however,
that children can assess them-
selves, risks which present no
hidden dangers. This can be
seen as progress in a world in
which helicopter parents
constantly provide all-round
care for their children. As one
established playground desig-
ner once said, Every child has
the right to break his or her
arm while playing.
Thomas Jakob
 PRODUCTS CURRENTS

Join our faculty.

Change the world.
Deeply committed to the quality of the built and
natural environment, we are a close-knit school
of architecture and landscape architecture at one
of the worlds top 20 public universities.

We are located in Vancouver, an ideal laboratory to prepare

the next generations of architects, landscape architects,
designers, and planners to respond to the urgent human
and environmental issues of our times. We are looking for
new colleagues to teach students to become intellectual and
creative leaders, articulate spokespersons, and progressive
agents of change for society.

Assistant Professor, Landscape Architecture

Youll study contemporary issues in landscape architecture
and engage in a related area of research, scholarship or
creative practice, and teaching. You must be committed to
quality design teaching and have amazing abilities in digital
representation. You must enjoy teaching courses and design
studios, and supervising graduate students.

Instructor, Landscape Architecture

You will develop innovative curricula in landscape technology
and representation courses. Youll take on a leadership role in
the materials and structures area of the curriculum and have
opportunities to participate in design-build projects. You must
enjoy teaching undergraduate and graduate courses.

For the full details, please visit

sala.ubc.ca/careers

UBC hires on the basis of merit and is committed to employment equity. We

encourage all qualied persons to apply. Canadians and permanent residents
of Canada will be given priority.
Thomas Jakob

Rope play equipment offers children and adolescents a variety of opportunities to safely go
beyond their limits. It can also be used by several children simultaneously.
CURRENTS PRODUCTS

Mobile Play System

The Imagination Playground is a mobile playground equipment
system for children between the ages of two and twelve. The
geometric blocks and shapes are made of lightweight foam
material, and were developed by the American architect David
Rockwell. The Imagination Playground blocks can be used to
create both mobile indoor and outdoor playgrounds. When
used together with other materials such as sand, water and vari-
ous loose items, the strengths of this play and learning system
quickly become apparent.
www.playparc.de

Global Motion
Children who love to climb and rotate now have infinite play
possibilities within their reach with Global Motion. Landscape
Structures new freestanding, rotating climber welcomes groups
of children aboard for a fully-inclusive, multisensory experience.
Global Motion even remains easy to turn and control when fully
loaded, thanks to the patent-pending progressive resistance
mechanism which keeps things rotating at fun, yet controllable
speeds. With 14 nets that can be climbed on the inside or outside
and two levels of multi-person seating areas, Global Motion is a
thrilling and safe way for many children to play together.
www.playlsi.com

104
 PRODUCTS CURRENTS

Water Journey
Inspired by natures flowing streams, Water Journey is a collec-
tion of four events Labyrinth, Jet Dance, The Race and Tide
Pool that stimulate children of all ages physically, intellectually,
emotionally and socially. Whether this involves the use of a sin-
gle event or multiple ones connected together, Water Journey
creates vibrant spaces that invite everyone to play, socialise or
just relax. It is an interactive experience for children and a com-
munal meeting place for parents as they gather to play, socialise
or just contemplate and watch water on its journey downstream.
www.vortex-intl.com

Across the Gorge

The Swiss municipality Grindelwald southwest of Bern has yet
another tourist attraction: a 170 m2 net construction now spans
the glacier gorge through which the Ltschine River rapidly
flows. Opened at the end of June 2016, a maximum of 229 climb-
ers can now simultaneously climb above the gorge at a height of
seven metres above the water, supported by a structure made of
steel and rope. The net was custom-made by hand in Berlin by
Corocord Spacenet Manufacture, which belongs to the Danish
Kompan Group. The climbing spacenet is part of grindelwald-
sports AGs completely new adventure and theme park.
www.corocord.com

105
CURRENTS PRODUCTS
Nature Play is a prominent new gate-
way at Royal Park in Melbourne, Aus-
tralia. The playground includes an
area of high rope traverses, a water
play area and climbing structures.
Nature Play, Melbourne, Australia
Nature Play at Royal Park is
part of a partnership project
between the City of Mel-
bourne and the Victorian
Department of Health and
Human Services to reestablish
parkland at the former Royal
Childrens Hospital site. The
project is a prominent new
gateway that responds directly
to both feedback from the
community and the valued
character of Royal Park. The
seven Wurundjeri seasons of
Melbourne are central to this
new landscape, informing the
structure, planting and play
Richter Spielgerte
experiences of the space.
Built for $5.5 million and
opened last March, Nature
106
Play has 1,200 trees, gullies,
grasslands and a hill with dra-
matic views of the city. And, to
the chagrin of many parents
and delight of their children,
the project also includes a
water play area that encourages
kids to work together to pump
and dam water before it is
finally released into a sandpit.
The playground was devel-
oped and designed by the City
of Melbourne and Richter
Spielgerte in Germany. It
includes an area of high rope
traverses, large climbing struc-
tures made of logs and ropes,
a water play area and land-
scaped areas. The idea was to
provide an opportunity for
Peter Bennetts
children to take more risks.
An extensive community
engagement process encour-
aged input from locals, broader
metropolitan Melbourne and
the entire state, reflecting
both the regional role of the
park and the important rela-
tionship this site has with the
new Royal Childrens Hospi-
tal. This engagement process
lead to the creation of a brief
to include nature-based play
and to be inviting and accessi-
ble to the whole community.
The project was recently
crowned the nations best by
the Australian Institute for
Landscape Architects.
www.richter-spielgeraete.de
 PRODUCTS CURRENTS

Richter Spielgerte

107
CURRENTS PRODUCTS
Margaret Mahy Playground in Christ-
church, New Zealand was built after
the major earthquake that struck New
Zealand in February 2011, and affec-
ted Christchurch in particular.
Margaret Mahy Playground, Christchurch, New Zealand
With the opening of the Mar-
garet Mahy Playground in
Christchurch, New Zealand,
one of the southern hemi-
spheres largest and most
modern playgrounds has
been created. It was built after
the major earthquake that
struck New Zealand in Feb-
ruary 2011, and affected
Christchurch in particular.
The detailed planning phase
from early 2013 to mid-2015
included a playground design
competition held among
schools in the Canterbury
108
region. The entries for this foundations are at different the entire site was surveyed.
competition helped inspire heights. One of the greatest The resulting three-dimen-
the final design as created by challenges facing the team at sional data set was then used
the Berliner Seilfabrik. the Berliner Seilfabriks Cre- by the Berliner Seilfabrik to
The playgrounds layout is ative Centre was to get reli- create a virtual site.
based on Canterburys four able topographical data from Using this data, the play
main natural habitats: The the park designers on the structure was conceived,
Forest, The Wetlands, The ground, since the creation of manufactured and installed
Plains and Coastal. The artificial hills was envisaged as on site with the utmost preci-
playground consists of two part of the parks landscape. sion. As a result, a new and
different parts. The first sec- To allay this problem, play- wonderful playground is now
tion includes a large, custom- ground concepts were first located in the Heart of
made net stretched across created, based on which pre- Christchurch, exciting both
two enormous masts. The net liminary drafts were then children and their parents
is fixed in place by a total of drawn up and offered. When and grandparents alike.
15 anchor points, whose site grading was completed, www.berliner-seilfabrik.de
 PRODUCTS CURRENTS

Berliner Seilfabrik

109
CURRENTS AUTHORS
AUTHORS
Francesca Arici is a Sicilian
landscape urbanist with exten-
sive international experience.
She is an Adjunct Professor in
Urban Culture at IE University
in Spain. Currently, she is
leading a large interdisciplin-
ary urban regeneration project
for Mutrah, Oman.
farici@post.harvard.edu
Kees Christiaanse studied
architecture and urban plan-
ning at TU Delft, the Nether-
lands. In 1980 he joined
OMA/Rem Koolhaas and was
appointed partner in 1983. In
1989 he founded his own
company, now KCAP Archi-
tects & Planners. Kees Chris-
tiaanse was awarded with a
2016 RIBA international Fel-
lowship as an honour to his
lifetime oeuvre.
zuerich@kcap.eu
Laura Cipriani is an Adjunct
Professor of Landscape Archi-
tecture and Urbanism at IUAV
University of Venice and the
Politecnico di Milano. After
completion of a Masters degree
in Design Studies at Harvards
GSD and a Ph.D. at IUAV,
Cipriani co-founded the re-
search firm Superlandscape.
ciprianilaura@gmail.com
Alexander Gutzmer is Editor-
in-Chief of the German archi-
tecture magazine Baumeister
and Editorial Director of the
publishing house Callwey in
Munich. He is also a Professor
of Communication and Media
Culture at Quadriga University
of Applied Sciences, Berlin.
a.gutzmer@callwey.de
Lrke Sophie Keil is a land-
scape architect with an M.A.
from the University of Copen-
hagen. Specializing in the re-
configuration of 20th-century
urban landscapes and citizen
participation, she will contin-
ue her doctoral work at UCPH
in the fall of 2016.
lsophiekeil@gmail.com
Kees Lokman is Assistant
Professor in the School of Ar-
chitecture and Landscape Ar-
chitecture at the University of
British Columbia, Canada.
His research focuses on rela-
tionships among landscape,
infrastructure, ecology and
urbanism. Lokman is also
founder of Parallax Land-
scape, a collaborative plat-
form that explores design
challenges related to climate
change, water and food short-
ages, depletion of energy
resources, and urbanization.
klokman@sala.ubc.ca
David Madden is Assistant
Professor in the Sociology De-
partment and the Cities Pro-
gramme at the London School
of Economics. His research fo-
cuses on housing, public
space, and urban theory. He is
co-author, with Peter Marcuse,
of In Defense of Housing (Ver-
so, 2016).
d.j.madden@lse.ac.uk
Claudia Moll studied land-
scape architecture at HSR
Hochschule fr Technik Rap-
perswil, Switzerland, and holds
a Ph.D. from ETH Zurich. She
worked for several landscape ar-
chitecture offices in Switzerland
110
and was an editor for the maga-
zines Garten+Landschaft and
Topos. Currently, she is with the
gta Archives at ETH Zurich and
also works as a freelance jour-
nalist. She is Co-President of
the Swiss Association of Land-
scape Architects (BSLA).
claudia.moll@hgta.arch.ethz.ch
Conor OShea is an American
landscape designer and urban-
ist. He is founder and princi-
pal of Hinterlands Urbanism
and Landscape and Assistant
Professor in the Department
of Landscape Architecture at
the University of Illinois at Ur-
bana-Champaign.
ceoshea@hinterlands-ul.net
Palle Petersen studied jour-
nalism in Winterthur and ar-
chitecture at ETH Zurich.
Since 2013 he has been an edi-
tor for Hochparterre, a Swiss
specialized journal for archi-
tecture, design and planning.
He accompanied the develop-
ment of the Gotthard axis by
publishing several articles as
well as a 40-page special edi-
tion on the subject.
petersen@hochparterre.ch
Viriato Soromenho-Marques
teaches political and environ-
mental philosophy, and Euro-
pean intellectual history in the
Departments of Philosophy
and European Studies at the
University of Lisbon, where he
is a Full Professor. He has been
actively engaged in the citizens
environmental movement in
Portugal and other European
countries since 1978.
viriatosmarques@netcabo.pt
Stefan Tischer is a landscape
architect. He is also a Professor
for Landscape Architecture at
the University of Sassari, Italy.
With his office in Berlin he has
realized major projects like the
memorial landscape at the for-
mer concentration camp of
Ravensbrck in Germany.
stefan.tischer@gmail.com
Marc Verheijen is a traffic en-
gineer and an architect. He is
Professor of Urban Infrastruc-
ture and Mobility at Rotterdam
University of Applied Sciences
and also work as an architect
for the Urban Planning and
Public Works Department of
the municipality of Rotterdam.
mpam.verheijen@rotterdam.nl
PHOTO CREDITS
Rasmus Hjortshj Coast
Studio: 15
Cobe Architects: 16
Rasmus Hjortshj Coast
Studio: 1819
Gottlieb Paludan Architects /
Lars Rolfsted Mortensen: 20
Hkan Dahlstrm: 2223 Mexico City Metropolitan Area,
Buro Lubbers: 25 (Top)
Idde Lammers: 25 (Bottom)
Mi Chiel: 26 (Top)
Buro Topia: 26 (Bottom)
BGG: 28
Markus Frietsch: 3031
Markus Frietsch: 32
Alp Transit Gotthard AG: 33
CIPM/Franco Banfi: 3435
Alex MacLean: 3637
Michael Van Valkenburgh
Associates, Inc.: 3839
Alex MacLean: 4043
Grace Jiang: 45
Patrick Beech, Julia Casol: 4647
Kees Lokman: 4851
Arup: 5259
MVRDV: 6062
Village Underground: 63
Olaf Riegel: 64
Heiner Holme: 65
Nelson Garrido: 6673
E. Isidoro, P. Marangoni,
F. Marcato, A. Marinelli, N.
Mascotto: 7475
Laura Cipriani: 76
E. Isidoro, P. Marangoni, F.
Marcato, A. Marinelli, N. Mas-
cotto: 79 (Top)
G. Facchinelli, L. Gibellato, D.
Jovanovic, L. Musio, C. Oliva-
to: 79 (Bottom)
AM3/Mauro Filippi: 8087
Daniel Kessler: 8889
Daniel Kessler: 9193
IBA Basel: 95 (Top)
Stadt Huningue: 95 (Bottom)
KCAP: 97
Stefan Mller: 99
Ossip van Duivenbode: 101
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(Washington, DC: Transporta-
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east (Trento: Universit degli
Studi di Trento).
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Hallegatte, S., Corfee-Morlot, J.
(2011), Understanding climate
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Vogt-Schlib, A. (2011), Build-
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TRANSLATORS
German/English:
Adam Burton: 88
David Skogley: 28, 96
COPY EDITORS
Adam Burton
Kate Guiney
David Skogley
Michael Wachholz
INSERT
Topos 96 contains brochures of
BESCO Berliner Steincontor
GmbH, Berlin, Germany;
Elancia AG, Langelsheim, Ger-
many; Streetlife BV, Leiden,
Netherlands; Victor Stanley,
Inc., Dunkirk, MD, USA.
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ISSN 0942-752 X
ISBN 978-3-7667-2251-5
111
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97
2016

Topos 97/December 2016 Transformation Process

Infrastructure. Mobility is all around us. It is a central element in a globalised world that
shapes our everyday life. To enable mobility, infrastructure is becoming more and more
important. But infrastructure should be much more than just a necessity that connects peo-
ple with their surroundings. It affects our environment and calls for integrated solutions
that form a relationship between engineering, architecture and landscape architecture. This
issue of Topos portraits projects, that have an interdisciplinary approach and provide inno-
vative design solutions for stations, walkways and promenades. Furthermore, it looks at the
social and political impacts of infrastructure be it a bridge in London, a new water man-
agement concept in Mexico or a transboundary footpath between France and Switzerland.

ISBN 978-3-7667-2259-1