Water as a Primary Building Material of the City as Second Nature
Human existence is tied to water. Lack of water, in the case of aridity, as well as too much water, in the case of flood events, have always been some of the major threats to mankind’s existence. With climate change, these water-related extremes are increasing. In face of a changed nature-culture relationship and of water-related threats, there is a great demand for ecological measures and design interventions to increase the resilience of human habitats. At the same time the almost inexhaustible atmospheric and social potential of water for the enhancement of the urban landscape’s quality can be further explored and actualized. Since water reacts sensitively and dynamically to the specific conditions of a place such as temperature, topography, soil conditions, unlike any other element it has the potential to promote the peculiarities of a place and make them tangible.
The article demonstrates—by looking into urban design projects – that embracing the flows and states of water can unravel the specific character of a place, make it tangible and even celebrate the resource; it illustrates how the water flow, conceived as a narrative thread running through all its states, can become the driver of an urban development project, while enhancing its ecological performance; and finally argues that tackling pressing water concerns related to climate change offers the chance to develop urban landscapes with economical and social benefits, high specificity and cultural value.
Autor*innen: Andreas Quednau, Sabine Müller
Buch: in: Water-Related Urbanization and Locality: Protecting, Planning and Designing Urban Water Environments in a Sustainable Way. Prominski, M. & Wang, F. (Hrsg.). Singapur: Springer, 2020, S. 255-281.
Verlag: Springer
Erscheinungsjahr: 2020
weitere Autor*innen: Martin Prominski, Kendra Busche, Fang Wang, Chenge Gao, Wenying Hu, Carl Herwarth von Bittenfeld, Joachim Rosenberger, Binyi Liu, Wei Chen, Guangjia Zhang, Zhanying Zhu, Jing Liang, Jianli Ding, Jinjie Wang, Ligang Ma, Wen Ma, Qiang He, Xiaoliu Huangfu, Caihong Liu, Ziwei Chen, Haochun Li, Qingyin Liu, Longjiang Du, Antje Stokman, Dagmar Pelger, Amelie Rost, Dorothee Halbrock, Wolfgang Dickhaut, Michael Richter, Jing Wu, Mengting Li, Henrik Schultz, Annette Rudolph-Cleff, Simon Gehrmann, Bihu Wu, Yanbo Wen, Tingwei Lin, Chi Li, Xinyu Ma, Christian Albert, Jana Brenner, Johannes Hermes, Dominik Metzger, Julia Thiele, Hui Wu, Hexian Jin, Qingqing Zheng, Wenqi Lin, Li Liu, Junhui Liang, Hui Yi, Bin Liu, Rüdiger Prasse
