SPOOL

Circular Water Stories II

Inge Bobbink — 2021-12-31

Circular Water Stories focusses on the changing circumstances of the water system and water chain, and the consequential spatial transformation. The approach highlights the vulnerable interdependency between traditional, marginalized water communities and their environments. The papers of this second Spool issue on Circular Water Stories in the Landscape Metropolis #8 investigate traditional water systems as a source of inspiration for today’s water, characterised by the concepts of too much, too little, and too dirty from two main perspectives: the people-orientated cultural perspective and the systemic spatial perspective.

Banjarmasin, where the river is the city!

Peter Timmer — 2021-12-30

The Indonesian city of Banjarmasin, Borneo, is widely known as the ‘city of the thousand rivers.’ Residents live and work in urban settlements that occupy the river and its banks. However, modern road-oriented urbanization, overpopulation, illegal building activity, and pollution have a devastating impact. Without adequate management, Banjarmasin’s impressive river-related identity would lose its cultural and socio-economic significance. Therefore, the city government is searching for solutions to revive its river culture and to revitalize riverine settlements. In 2019, a workshop was carried out by following the HUL Quick Scan method, which is inspired by UNESCO’s Historic Urban Landscape (HUL) approach. This paper focuses on the outcomes of the workshop in Banjarmasin in relation to participatory revitalization of urban riverine settlements.

Rising above surface

Rapa Surajaras — 2021-12-30

The present research aims to explore a method of landscape reading and analysis through traditional water systems. Throughout the collection of local knowledge about water management in two opposite parts of the world it is possible to learn how natural resources have been used in local communities for hundreds of years to generate resilient, circular and multi-functional water and land management. In order to create a base knowledge to provide lessons for today’s urban challenges, we have analyzed two traditional water systems: The Xinghua Duotian agro system in China and the Chinampas floating gardens in Mexico. Through a systematic collection of data and generation of comparative drawings, maps and diagrams, we were able to understand the logic behind the water management and to extrapolate possible design and strategic principles to be applied in present landscape and urban design. To achieve the proposed objectives, the ‘illustrative method’ (Bobbink and Ruy, 2017) was used. The illustrative method is based on the form-layer method (Steenbergen et al. 2008), which is used as an analytical tool to comprehend the relation between landscape interventions and its site based in 4 basic layers: basic form, program form, image form, and special form (Bobbink, 2019). During the research process, the method was adapted in order to analyze the specific cultural landscapes used as case studies (Xinghua Duotian and Chinampas). Because the form-layer method has been developed for landscape architectonic design we found it necessary to extend the analysis in further layers to reveal other landscape values such as use, maintenance and the circularity of human made traditional water systems (Bobbink, 2019). From the analysis of both water systems, we could extract two main lessons that can help us to design and plan more resilient and sustainable cities. Firstly, the possibility of designing a method of settlement and urban expansion based on natural principles where circularity is a key element to generate a sustainable way of extraction and restoration of natural resources. And secondly, that specific landscape identities, such as wetland and lakes, can be a provider of multi-functional development for cities where agriculture, economy, urban expansion and ecology are part of the similar network. Using these principles that are the basis of the analyzed water systems, we can come back to a more sustainable, circular and multi-functional way of using our natural resources.

Design by Radical Indigenism

Julia Watson — 2021-12-30

This article considers the traditional water systems of indigenous cultures and explores their innovations as unique responses to the impacts of climate change in the global south. Local communities have been living with and developing water-responsive infrastructures for generations that engage and support the complex ecosystems they inhabit. Many of these innovations improve coastal resiliency, yet remain undocumented and unexplored in the evolution of contemporary solutions. Rooted in traditional ecological knowledge, or TEK, these technologies work symbiotically with, rather than against nature, and offer examples of a more comprehensive approach to underwater and intertidal design. These innovations are Lo—TEK, a term coined by designer and author Julia Watson, that is defined as resilient infrastructures developed by indigenous people through Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) (Watson 2019). The movement to bring these innovations to the forefront of the design field counters the idea that Lo—TEK indigenous innovation is low-tech, a term often incorrectly applied to indigenous innovation that means unsophisticated, uncomplicated, and primitive. In actuality, Lo—TEK aligns to today’s sustainable values of low-energy, low-impact and low-cost, while producing complex nature-based innovations that are inherently sustainable. Lo-TEK expands the definition of contemporary technology by rebuilding our understanding of climate resilient design using indigenous knowledge and practices that are sustainable, adaptable, and borne out of necessity. Indigenous people have learned to live symbiotically with their environments, especially water. This essay will explore the Kuttanad Kayalnilam Farming System by the Malayalis in India, the Sangjiyutang Mulberry Dyke and Fish Ponds in China, and the Ramli Lagoon farms in Ghar El Melh, Tunisia. These innovations are inherently resilient to the stresses of the climate and are multi-functional, symbiotic structures themselves. While not directly intended for protection from the new challenge of sea level rise, they can inform how we can build circular water systems that work with the environment, rather than disrupting it.

In Search of Eden

Marjolein Hillege — 2021-12-30

The Barranco de Tremps is one of many valleys in the vast hills of the region of Aragón, in the northeast of Spain. A barranco is a natural watercourse created by excessive rainfall, visible only as a dry river bed in summer. Such watercourses and riverbeds are no longer present in this valley.

Today, the valley is full of olive and almond orchards surrounded by pine forests. Summers are increasingly hot and without rain. Since the advent of the tractor in the late 1980s, the soil is ploughed more often and more deeply, and there is little soil life left. During the winter months, wind and rain erode the bare soil, which absorbs almost no rainwater. The water retaining old stone walls have been breached by new wider tractor access paths, through which rainwater also washes away.

Eight hectares of orchards and forest in this valley are owned and cared for by a landscape architect and her partner. A longing to work closer to nature and a desire to transform a semi-arid area into a rich and biodiverse landscape brought them to this spot. They are exploring old and new horticulture techniques to enrich the terrain with diverse planting, to improve soil quality and increase its ability to hold water. Some of these experiments fail, some succeed. In this in-situ laboratory, all experiences contribute to the knowledge of the relationships between soil, vegetation, land use, cultivation, and water cycles.

This visual report gives an impression of the terrain, shows the various experiments of the past two years and the gradual development of spatial principles for design and management.

Riverine Women after Resettlement

Satya Maia Patchineelam — 2021-12-30

The construction of Belo Monte Hydropower dam has resettled riverine communities from their homes to the outskirts of the city of Altamira, kilometres away and disconnected from the river. Resettlement can be a threat to both women and men’s adaptation in the new environment, whereas the lack of in-depth studies regarding gender policies and local traditional communities can create even more obstacles for women. The disconnection that stems the resettlement from these individuals has resulted in the loss of their spatial identity and livelihood. This situation caused local traditional people to share resettlement units with city dwellers, thereby jeopardising their traditions and distancing them from both the river and their livelihood.