Revitalization of the river Aire, Geneva, Switzerland / Group Superpositions

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临近日内瓦市的Aire河道流经历史悠久的农耕村落。这条河道从19世纪末期开始就逐步被改为运河。日内瓦市政府于2001年发起一场竞赛，旨在通过摧毁运河从而将河道恢复到初始蜿蜒曲折的自然形态。Group Superpositions的获奖方案中，计划将运河清晰的区域边界与一片平行宽广的漫步区相结合。运河将作为整个变化过程的指针，以及一条可能使人了解到改造前后的参考线。设计方案从场地原有的状况出发，又融合了其他诸多现状。

Near Geneva, the Aire river flows through valleys historically devoted to farming. From late 19th century the river was progressively canalized. In 2001, the State of Geneva opened a competition with the idea of restoring the river to its original shape and meanders by destroying the canal. In our winning entry we proposed instead to combine the clear territorial cut of the canal with a parallel new vast divagation space for the river. In the process the canal became the pointer for the transformations, a reference line giving the possibility to understand a “before” and an “after”. A becoming which superimposes both situations and accept that “something began which was already there”.

▼ 新建的河畔公园以及呈蜿蜒曲折自然形态的河道，the new rivergarden with the restored river with its meandering nature

竞赛简介的“正式”文本更偏向生态方面，仅仅重视环境改善的合理需求，而忽视了任何设计价值与考量。自然与文化被置于完全相反的两个极端。Group Superpositions的项目则提出采取另一种方法，从而将紧迫的生态迁移与更宏观的文化变更结合在一起。

新建的河流空间和原有运河河道上狭长型的新建花园通过复杂的设计建立起紧密的联系。绵延的运河河道是建成这一矛盾体的关键，景观既要有着静如止水的特点，又要引发人们探索的欲望，既是一个休闲而惬意的场所，又富有寓教于乐的意义；如果缺失任意一点，设计都不能构成一座真正的城市花园。在整个流域、原有的山丘形态和人为改造的痕迹中，这条狭长的河畔花园将这些场面、视野、冲突等构成一场真实版爱森斯坦式“蒙太奇”。旧运河留存的痕迹使得新的设计情景之中饱含复杂的时间性，有着十分遥远又非常现代的奇异感。空间与时间的冲突之间充满着记忆与希望。

The  “official” justification for the competition brief was an ecological one, in which the legitimated necessities of environmental improvements neglected any design values or considerations. A clear opposition of nature and culture. Our project attempts to propose an alternative path, where the urgent ecological shifts are incorporated in a larger cultural change.

The complex organisation of the design associates the new river space and a linear set of gardens in the former canal. In reality the whole design becomes a linear garden. The footprint of the canal is a key device for building the paradoxal blend of calm and questioning, of leisure and knowledge without which there is no real garden. Facing the whole watershed, the original morphology of the mountains and the traces of human modifications, this long rivergarden organises the situations, the views, the confrontations, the presences in a true Einsensteinian “montage”, aiming at introducing into this fragile and precious territory questions, worries and hopes, through “shocking” juxtapositions renewing attention and emotion. The presence of this old trace of the canal in a new designed situation built a complex temporality, both very far away, and very present. A collision of space and time. Of memory and desire.

▼ 狭长的河畔花园有着水域、山丘和人为改造的痕迹，a long rivergarden contains the original morphology of the mountains and the traces of human modifications

“露天实验室”的这一特性在新河床的设计中得到最大化。设计团队清楚地意识到固定河床式的设计只会是无用的努力，并且了解河流更偏向自我设计的特性，从而冒险采用了一种“起始模式”，或者说一个有着河流流向和制备地形的“初始过程”。钻石形的场地，基于有着耗散力形式的渗透原理，创造出一个充满不确定河道的复杂网络。这些河道布满整个新河床，设计团队在先去除腐殖质层之后，保持对纵向分布的河流的精准控制下对整个场地进行挖掘。菱形突起的尺寸依据能够“接受”的原先蜿蜒形态的幅度而成形。

设计达到了壮观的效果，并且概念上和许多“大地”艺术家的作品有着异曲同工之妙。对自然情况的人工干预起着明显的效果，却也任凭自然侵蚀力的摆布。在水流进入这片新的河道区域的一年之后，结果远远超出设计团队最乐观的期待：在这条充满惊喜的路线上，河流展示出的多元材料，如沉积物、砾石、沙子以及最初诞生的菱形几何等，形成了极其丰富的河流地貌。

This “open-air laboratory” character is at its maximum with the design of the new riverbed. There, conscious of the useless effort to designed a fixed river bed, and well aware that a river loves to design itself freely – we instead risked a “launching pattern”, an “initiating process” whose addresses the river flow and a prepared terrain. This diamond-shape diagram, based on the percolation principle with dissipatives forces shapes, opens a complex web of undetermined channels for the flows. These channels were excavated along the entire new river bed, first by removing the humus layer, and then digging the entire diagram in maintaining a precise control of the longitudinal profile of the river. The dimensions of these lozenges islands were configured in order to be able to “accept” the amplitudes of the former, historical meanders.

The result is spectacular and suggest a conceptual link with the works of many “earthworks” artists, effecting clearly artificial interventions in a natural situation, thereafter let to the mercy of the natural forces of erosion. One year after the flows invaded the new river space, the results are beyond our most optimistic expectations: the river flows displaces diverse materials, sediments, gravels, sands and the initial geometrical matrix of lozenges gives birth, with a very surprising path, to an extreme diversity of the fluvial geomorphology.

▼ 河床上设计的菱形突起，lozenges islands on the new riverbed

▼ 一个充满不确定河道的复杂网络，a complex web of undetermined channels for the flows

目前设计团队最关键的任务在于对整个工作过程的监控：在这个巨大的实验场，使用最先进的技术工具来观察、测量和面对所有发生在河床上的演变。最先得出的结论是这个不得不接受的悖论：对“起始网格”越明确的设计，反而会使得河流更自由地进行自我设计。

The monitoring of the processes at work are now a key mission of the design team: to observe, measure and confront all the processes at work in the river bed – with the most advanced technological tools– in this huge laboratory. And a first conclusion is that we have to accept this paradox: the more defined the launching grid given to the river, the more the river will be free to design.

▼ 概念设计，concept scheme

▼ 形态记录，volution of the morphology

▼ 平面，plan

Client: State of Geneva
Team of designers: Group Superpositions
Architects: Georges Descombes and Atelier Descombes & Rampini SA, Rue du Beulet 4, CH 1203 Genève
Engineers: B+C Ingénieurs SA, Rue des Grand’Portes 2, CH 1213 Onex
ZS Ingénieurs civils SA, Rue des Grand’Portes 2, CH 1213 Onex
Biology: Biotec SA, Rue du 24 Septembre 9, CH 2800 Delémont
Construction period:
Chronology: 2001-2016 (in 3 phases)
Completion date: 2016
Cost: 70’000’000 CHF
Surface: 50 Ha
Lentgh: 5km
Drawings: Group Superpositions
English Text: Group Superpositions
Chinese Text: gooood

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