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inter-city danielle kim m.arch 2 arch 700: senior research studio i instructor: alberto de salvatierra
Despite the disastrous effects of the 2005 flooding of the Bow River, the current urban form of the city of Calgary is still ill-equipped to receive the river’s next inevitable flood. INTER-CITY speculates on the potential of using landscape design as a driver for flood mitigation, urban form, and urban agriculture
through the re-design of a large parcel of the city at approximately 7.5 km2. The performative qualities of plants were used as an inspiration for the design. Just as many plants have multiple defense mechanisms - providing multiple routes of survival for themselves - so too does the city. Using a collection of parts to create a patterned and highly articulated landscape creates both barriers and new fluvial networks for the river. Urban settlement and agricultural areas are interspersed throughout the city, blurring the lines of traditional land use planning and creating more localized supply chains that will sustain citizens. Through these strategies, the city allows urbanites to have a connection to their food and to the landscape. By using landscape as a foundational design driver, the Bow River is transformed into an intriguing, dynamic, and temporal element of the city; rather than an obstacle or a force of destruction.
