Renaturation de l'Aire - 9a Biennal 2016

Descombes Georges, François Gerber, Descombes Julien, Rampini Marco, Corinne Van Cauwenberghe

Designing a rivergarden
The Aire river flows through valleys historically devoted to farming. From late 19th century it was progressively canalized. In 2001 State of Geneva opened a competition with the idea of restoring the river to its original shape by destroying the canal. We instead proposed to combine the canal with a vast divagation space for the river. In the process the canal becomes the pointer for the transformations, a reference line giving the possibility to understand the before and after.
The design associated the new river and a series of gardens in the former canal. In reality the whole design becomes a linear garden that organises situations, views, presences. The footprint of the canal is a key device for building the necessary calm and interiority without which there is no real garden. It is a permanent trace which introduces a complex temporality, both past and future, memory and desire.
For the drawing of the river - conscious of the useless effort to design a fixed river bed – we proposed a launching pattern whose form addresses the play between the river flow and the prepared terrain. This diamond-shape pattern opens a complex serie of undetermined channels for the flows. The results are beyond our expectations: the river flows, displacing diverse materials, gravels, sand and the geometrical matrix of lozenges is significantly modified. We must accept this paradox: the more defined the grid given to the river, the more the river will be free to design.

Autors

Descombes Georges

ATELIER DESCOMBES RAMPINI SA

François Gerber

BIOTEC Biologie appliquée SA

Descombes Julien

ATELIER DESCOMBES RAMPINI SA

Rampini Marco

ATELIER DESCOMBES RAMPINI SA

Corinne Van Cauwenberghe

Civil and hydraulic Engineers

Col·laboradors