DANCING ON THE EDGE
Experimenting
Lumby Strand Water Threats
Dancing on the Edge looks at the speculative futures of a half flooded Lumby Strand based upon the spectrum of sea level rise and storm surge scenarios, ranging from current storm surge threats and future sea level rise. This spectrum allows us to reexamine the common risk to protection binary and asks if there is space in-between these two for an alternative which can live within this “beneficial uncertainty.”
This project explores an area of land, redefined within this spectrum of events, deemed “The Zone of Experimentation,” wherein we are looking to see what diverse spatial qualities begin to form when one starts to design outside of the standard safety / risk frame of planning. Given the potentials of extreme change in landscape and the temporary qualities therein, can we begin to rethink how wetlands, agriculture, and secure housing are occupied, spatially formed, and organized.
Zone of Experimentation
Dancing on the Edge investigates three primary sites spanning from north to south Lumby Strand, each with their own problematics; ranging from loss of farmland to cloudbursts to lack of biodiversity, and finally potential home loss to sea level rise. Within each of these sites, strategies are implemented within a 50-year framework, where the problems of the present and the future are addressed.
EXPERIMENTING WITH LAND-USE
1. In preparation for dealing with water threats, the belt is designated as a Zone of Experimentation.
2. Cloudburst threats are addressed in urban areas through the creation of bioswales as waterways.
3. People living in the flood zone are rehoused in greenhouses in Stige, and agricultural land is sold to municipality.
4. Soil decontamination of agricultural land begins whilst new diversified forest ecosystems seeded in the belt, particularly around Lumby.
5. Pumping ceases, and since agricultural land is no longer drained, water begins to accumulating, acting as a new freshwater habitat. Canalised rivers crossing the belt are released.
6. Around Lumby new forms of land agriculture and agriculturenature hybrids are introduced. In the north, water based floating agriculture is tested.
