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Waterpleinen
Waterpleinen


To launch its 14th anthology, Water, Alphabet City has organized a series of events this week in Toronto, two of which are the HYDROCity symposium and its accompanying exhibition at the University of Toronto. Another event is a lunchtime talk in which Jeroen Bodewits will discuss Waterpleinen, a project designed by Florian Boer and Marco Vermeulen to reconfigure the stormwater infrastructure of Rotterdam.

Waterpleinen


In Florian Boer and Marco Vermeulen's proposal, rainwater runoff isn't funneled into a complex system of underground pipes, a system that is rather expensive to build and maintain, but is managed instead through a network of surface reservoirs, the Waterpleinen, or Watersquares. These storage spaces will be dry for most of the year, but during storm events, they will collect water from the surrounding neighborhood. If one reaches capacity, excess water will overflow into another basin. After the rain, the collected water will slowly recede into nearby bodies of water or seep into the soil.

So instead of being buried in concrete, excised from the daily life of the city and only experienced by municipal workers, urban hydrology is visibly, even prominently, incorporated into the surface fabric of the city. Programmed with recreational opportunities when its dry and even while inundated, its infrastructure provides active public spaces for the local area, not dark playgrounds for a handful of urban explorers. It even becomes an event, its frolicking rivulets and interior lakes staged for the young and old.

Waterpleinen


Originally developed in 2005, this concept has since become official urban policy. At least 25 watersquares are planned for Rotterdam in the coming years, with a prototype to be constructed soon.


Hyperlocalizing Hydrology in the Post-Industrial Urban Landscape
FantastiCity
MEtreePOLIS


Coinciding with the next issue (#18) of Kerb, the annual landscape architecture journal edited by students at RMIT, Melbourne, is their first ever international design competition, PlastiCity FantastiCity. The competition brief sounds wildly open ended, which could frustrate some but hopefully will only foster astonishing visions of the future city.

Imagine the limitless world of a child. Creative boundaries have not yet been conceived, limits not yet understood. We want to see your city in all its wildness. A child can compose a world of immeasurable fantasy and pleasure yet the regulations that we currently adhere to have diminished our ability to make this our reality.

What if when you take a lunch break, parks literally broke from the earth, airlifted above the clouds escaping into the sunlight, landing within the hour leaving you at peace with the world?

PlastiCity FantastiCity is remodeling the constructed city at any chosen scale to become a world of playful opportunity, where nothing that manifests itself in today's cities is present. This ideas competition seeks a multidisciplinary approach to discover new potentials and possibilities within the world and in particular for the Landscape Architecture profession.


The registration deadline is December 18, 2009, and the submission deadline for panels is January 18, 2010.

Winners will receive cash prizes in addition to page spreads in Kerb 18.

PlastiCity FantastiCity
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