Producing at the Limits of Growth
The in-between: between appropriation and abandonment, between floods and droughts. How can architecture take hold of such places? These spaces, as intriguing as they are daunting, nonetheless offer unexpected potential to those who take an interest in them. Water, sometimes in excess, sometimes receding, is the link between our projects: knowing how to handle it when it is abundant, harvesting it carefully to make the most of it in dry periods, or accepting its fluctuations in order to adapt to them better. Producing at the limits, with human activities crossing the critical threshold of natural resources, leads us to consider these in-between spaces. Enhancing and making the most of spaces perceived as hostile: this is the challenge that overproduction imposes on us.
Speakers
- Justine ROGNON,
architect, Substances Architectes sàrl, rue de la Gare 12, 1096 Cully
Towards floating agriculture: coping with dwindling fishing resources in the stilt villages of Tonlé Sap, Cambodia
Tonlé Sap, the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia, is a vital fish reserve for the Cambodian population. However, the current climate and political situation is jeopardising fishing resources. The lake is home to fishing communities that depend on fish stocks and are the first to be affected by the situation.
Drawing on traditional architecture and the spatial organisation of river dwellings, the project aims to strengthen the livelihoods of the fishermen’s stilt villages by proposing complementary activities that allow them to meet their needs without relying exclusively on fishing.
Floating vegetable gardens, fish-farming ponds, a market and a boat repair workshop for tourist boats will now provide access to alternative food sources and economic diversification, helping villagers to make a living.
- Reda BERRADA,
Architect, EPFL graduate, B.Sc. Architecture (McGill University), M.Sc. Architecture (EPFL)
Gleaning in the interzone: for a Tangier beyond the walls
The project is a manifesto for preserving interstitial space and its utopian potential. It takes a stand for the right to the city, to which one belongs by caring for its land and for one’s neighbour. It can be summed up in a few words: an infrastructure to harvest water, regenerate soils and make life grow. To this end, a disused hall is converted into a sorting centre for inorganic waste, and a plant nursery is set up on the edge of a wasteland made up of a small valley and hills ravaged by erosion, where murky water runs off amid the illegal dumping of construction waste.
Respondent
Prof. Rémi PAPILLAULT, LRA-ENSA Toulouse
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