Table of contents for N. 111 in Topos

In January 2020, flooding in the city of Jakarta displaced almost half a million residents.1 Vulnerable to coastal and river flooding, rising sea levels and accelerated subsidence, this Indonesian city of ten million has called upon the world for high-tech water management solutions.2 In 2014, Jakarta collaborated with the Dutch government to apply their dyke concept to the coastline in a 40 billion dollar proposal for multiple seawalls, new shorelines and its own version of Dubai’s Palm Islands, in the shape of the mythical garuda bird, giving it the name of the “Great Garuda Plan”.3 The timeline had set a completion date close to 2050, when an estimated 95 per cent of Jakarta will be underwater.4 While focusing on sea level rise, plans such as this favor single purpose infrastructures…

Esteros del Iberá or the Iberá Wetlands are a 13,000 km2 macro system of swamps, marshes and lagoons located in the northeastern Argentinian province of Corrientes, which shares international land borders with Paraguay and Brazil. It is considered one of the largest freshwater reservoirs in the world and is part of the Guaraní Aquifer System, the third largest groundwater reservoir in the world (1.2 million km2) and one of the few transboundary aquifers management of which is regulated by an international treaty: the Guaraní Aquifer Agreement, or GAA, signed in 2010 and later ratified by Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. Just pure water The vast expanse of aquatic landscapes, plus the wide variety of grasslands and forests that also make up Iberá, are home to over 4,000 animal and plant…

Since ancient times, man has tried to control and collect running water by building dams across riverbeds, thereby creating reservoirs and artificial lakes the water of which could then be used for supply and irrigation. Among the oldest dams are the Jawa dam in Jordan (4th millennium BC), the Sadd el-Kafara (“Dam of the Infidels”) on Wadi al-Garawi in Egypt (2600–2500 BC), the dam on the Orontes River in Syria (1300 BC) and the dam in ancient Alyzia in Greece, which still remains as a historic monument (1st century BC). The desire to harness water to perform work is likewise very old. In ancient Greece, water wheels were used for grinding wheat into flour. The evolution of the modern hydropower turbine, which began in the mid-18th century, turned the generation…

In autumn of 2019, the Cayman International School opened a facility for young children on the Cayman Islands in the Caribbean. The Early Childhood School was deliberately built around the school’s child-centred, playful educational philosophy. Every detail of this spacious new facility was designed with the intention of involving the school’s youngest students. Each classroom is designed and furnished for a specific age group, and there are areas for learning, playing and resting. Such flexible learning spaces allow for tailor-made teaching to meet individual needs. The core element of the outdoor area is the landscaped and fenced playground that has a tricycle path, small hills, Richter playground equipment and sand-covered areas. This outdoor space will give the children the opportunity to explore natural materials while they play and move around.…

What do we see? Is it real? Or is it rather a movie set? Maybe a scene from Star Wars? Or is it just a futuristic, architectural Fata Morgana, one that architects would see if they were lost and dehydrated in the desert? Neither. It is The Buhais Geology Park Interpretive Centre, which lies approximately 50 kilometres south-east of the city of Sharjah, UAE – a region of prehistoric and geological significance. The site features an abundance of marine fossils from over 65 million years ago, mountain ranges and ancient burial sites from the Stone, Bronze and Iron Ages. Seeking to create a series of exhibition spaces in order to present the region’s geological phenomena Hopkins Architects have designed five interconnected pods of varying sizes. The geometry of the pods…

The 1954 movie “On the Waterfront” with Marlon Brando tells the story of New York harbor longshoremen trying to make a living. The image of hard work, crime and corruption stuck with the Manhattan waterfront even after most harbor activities moved to Port Elizabeth, New Jersey, and the piers and warehouses were abandoned. Signe Nielsen, landscape architect of the Little Island, is among the early pioneers of New York’s green waterfront. She worked on the first 1993 master plan for the Hudson River Park and remembers early community meetings when it was very difficult for residents to imagine something else but crumbling piers, abandoned warehouses and derelict sheets of concrete. It was an alien thought for people participating in the public engagement process that the coastline of Manhattan could be…

Cities need to dramatically redefine and restructure their relationships with water, particularly in regions where climate change challenges their reliance on engineered hydrologies. The early settlement patterns of cities often took advantage of natural hydro-geographical positions – river and lake fronts, natural harbors, and so on – either for security, navigation, or commerce. However, these strategic land–water interfaces were often aggressively manipulated, dividing water and land, forcing them into submission, and compromising ecological, social, and functional relationships with the very waters they depended upon. Now, cities need to unpack these histories, reimagine themselves and redesign with water through more nuanced and interdependent nature–city relationships.1 Chicago is one such city, situated on the southwest shore of Lake Michigan, at the shortest distance between two major North American navigation routes, the Mississippi…

Major ocean-related changes as a result of climate change include sea level rise and ocean acidification (IPCC, 2013-2014), but neither will necessarily destroy islands or islanders. Observations of low-lying islands, especially in the Pacific, identify ongoing sea level rise and ocean acidification, yielding mixed outcomes. Some islands are indeed eroding and disappearing, but some are expanding, some are changing shape in area or volume, and some are not affected much (Kelman, 2018). The physical changes to the oceans have knock-on effects which could affect islanders in other ways. Freshwater is almost always scarce on islands, especially atolls. The so-called freshwater lenses under many of them are becoming increasingly salty, contaminating drinking water and undermining irrigation, with increased evapotranspiration adding to water scarcity (Falkland and White, 2020). Desalination is costly and…

Water is life, but too much or not enough of it poses risks to the way humans inhabit their environment. Unsurprisingly, the myth of the deluge has inspired imagination since the dawn of time. Its prophets and heroes – Noah, Utnapishtim, Deucalion – are testament to the power these myths still hold. In modern times, Science Fiction offers pathways to exploring worlds submerged by apocalyptic floods or buried beneath ice. They propose powerful scenarios for stories in which the catastrophic abundance or dearth of water determines how humans interact with their surroundings. They echo real-life challenges of sea level rise or increasingly frequent and intense flood or drought. Cultures complicit in such environmental changes are required to develop adequate responses, and the realms of Science Fiction can depict them in…

The curved truss tubes give the SIRIUS play element from smb Seilspielgeräte GmbH its characteristic shape. Six large curving tubes form open entrance areas, inviting users to climb onto the unit. The area net promotes a high degree of concentration when climbing due to its changing mesh sizes. A six-strand Hercules rope made of steel wires with a diameter of 18 millimetres and a high-quality polyamide or polyester yarn sheathing is used here. Aluminium ball knots connect the net’s intersecting ropes. These are pressed together with a hydraulic tool and thus transfer the necessary rope forces. Users can move around the inner dome in an upright position, without having to leave the area net. A large seating membrane, located at the highest point of the area net, offers space for…

Where ten years ago waves splashed against the walls of the villages, today you see an almost endless salt desert. Ships that once carried people from one side of the lake to the other lie on the shore like stranded whales, decaying. Salty winds from the desert are spreading further and further across local residents’ fields, causing their crops to dry up. Deprived of their livelihoods, people are fleeing to the surrounding towns and cities, and the villages around Lake Urmia are dying out. In the 1990s the lake was still about twice as large as the whole of Luxembourg. Increased periods of drought and higher summer temperatures have accelerated evaporation, however. In addition, thousands of illegal wells were built and through a large number of dams and irrigation projects…

The Huangpu River has always been the lifeline of the Chinese metropolis Shanghai with its almost 30 million inhabitants. The river is 113 kilometres long and grows to a width of almost 800 metres before it flows into the Yangtze. In the city, the river’s large loops separate the seven western inner-city districts (Puxi) from the Pudong District, which occupies the entire eastern bank of the river. The high bridges of the various motorway rings dominate the city and various road and metro tunnels connect both banks, while those on foot can use the more leisurely ferries. Since the foundation of the city, the banks of the river, as is often the case elsewhere, have been generally used for trade, commerce and industry, and were thus inaccessible to those who…

topos: Mr. Wagner, you visited ten African countries – Tanzania, Malawi, Zimbabwe, Botswana, South Africa, Namibia, Zambia, Angola, Rwanda and Mozambique – and you travelled, with your team and your camera, more than 18,000 kilometres by helicopter. What was your main motive for embarking on this journey? What were you looking for, what did you find? WAGNER: I was looking for water; the aim of the project “African Waters” was to call attention to water as a most valuable resource. Which it truly is. In Mozambique, for example, less than a third of the overall population has access to healthy drinking water. What is paradoxical, however, is that on my travels in Africa I came across endless amounts of water. The real problem is often not water scarcity but vastly…

On 12 November 2019 the acqua alta (high water) in Venice reached 187 cm above sea level, just slightly below the tragic 194 cm peak of 4 November 1966. These exceptional tides, which are more and more frequent, not only put Venice at risk, but also endanger the entire lagoon: An area of 55 hectares of a complex wetland system. The Venetian Lagoon is a single system geographically composed of three related parts that have different environmental and landscape characteristics: the Southern Lagoon, which is the most compromised; the Central Lagoon, characterised by the presence of the island of Venice; and the Northern Lagoon – the subject of this essay – the landscape which is still preserved to a great degree. The successive transformative processes set in motion by nature…

The global effects of the Coronavirus have led to the closure of playgrounds just about everywhere. They are now slowly reopening in some places, and the great rush to use them shows how painfully they’ve been missed – by children and parents alike. The period of firm restrictions regarding access and contact have made it clear just how important and essential public playgrounds are. Apart from outdoor exercise, the lack of social interaction was especially difficult, not only for children. Of course, these deprivations also encouraged the discovery of creative games and activities at home, but particularly in dense cities, it’s impossible to replace good, safe and challenging playgrounds and their equipment. We all look forward to climbing, sliding, swinging, jumping and romping around again, and we will undoubtedly learn…