REVERSING THE GAZE: REIMAGINING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN CITIES AND THEIR WATERWAYS

Organizers

Manuela Ronci, Politecnico di Torino
Tymon Wolender, Politecnico di Torino

Presenters

Chiara Cavalieri, Louvain Research Institute for Landscape
Alessio Mazzaro, Politecnico di Torino
Oisín Fee, TU Dublin
Tymon Wolender, Politecnico di Torino
Małgorzata Kuciewicz, CENTRALA

Climate change and its increasingly dramatic consequences (e.g. the recent flooding events in the Province of Valencia in Spain, along with a water shortage that has been going on for months in the Italian region of Sicily) impose the pressing need to confront the scarcity or excess of water, reasoning on its rational management to cope with the widest possible range of variations. 

Historically, cities have exploited their rivers for productive purposes, especially in the context of industrial processes, using water as a source of motive power and electricity, for cooling factories or for discharging waste water. Furthermore, functional reasons have often led to the channelling, covering or damming of waterways, altering their functionality or exacerbating the effects of water overflow events. The result of these attitudes has been, in many cases, the marginalisation of river territories and the displacement of undesirable still necessary productive activities right along rivers, which have lost their centrality, ecological value and harmonious relationship with urbanised contexts.

We are, however, witnessing a trend reversal resulting from the growing, global awareness – at a scientific and administrative level, as well as among citizens – of the need to rediscover a healthy and balanced relationship between the city and the rivers. A relationship no longer based on the exclusive exploitation of resources, but one that emphasises the ecological-environmental value of rivers, their potential in microclimatic regulation, and the spontaneous dynamics of their flows. Among others, blue infrastructures, water-sensitive cities, stormwater management, flood prevention, nature-based solutions impose themselves as ever more in-depth design and research themes to find innovative, efficient, economically viable solutions.

What often happens, however, is that concepts that work very well in theory – especially as a vehicle to construct scenarios for the cities of the future – in practice are difficult to translate into actual spatial transformation interventions, resulting in solutions that range between being extremely technological-engineering and highly standardised. _is leads to the spatial quality being affected by safety measures, to the multifunctionality or direct relationship with water being lost, or, finally, to the underestimation of the effects of such measures on the life cycle of the non-human species that inhabit rivers.

Therefore, the aim of this session is to discuss how cities can become safe places where the community can maintain a close relationship with its waterways, intended as welcoming and suitable for the development of biodiversity and valuable as a source of recreation.

Contributions may cover the following – but not exhaustive – topics:

- Reconstructing spatial, functional and emotional relationships between cities and their rivers

- Redeveloping forgotten, marginal and degraded peripheral river spaces

- Building climate shelters related to water spaces

- Integrating water management into spatial composition

- Introducing new perspectives and tools to make scenario planning practices more realistic

- Developing hybrid solutions for the adaptation of urban (and periurban) space to different climate scenarios

- Rethinking water as a place of experience and construction of space

- Imagining water spaces as places of encounters between humans and non-human species

Key words: N/A