LINDSAY HOLLAND
AYA MAHARANI
MUHAMMAD AZIZI ZULKIFLI
JIAWEI WANG
YING LI
Resilience in the Terrain of Water (Embracing Land + Water + Community) addresses flooding from increasingly regular severe typhoons and rising sea water levels (due to global warming) that affects Valenzuela City in the Philippines. Urban compartmentalization is a strategy we propose that divides the site into six containable areas by sets of double protective walls to embrace the current communities to create a new linear raised settlement infrastructure.
We have carefully surveyed the existing communities and located these walls to protect the existing institutions which we see as the mainstay of each community: churches, schools, cemeteries, factories, hospitals, basketball courts and markets. We add additional significant buildings to link the clustered communities together, such as Trade School, 3S Centre, Church & Orphanage and Jeepney Museum. The listed significant buildings are intend to fulfill the community needs and at same time to maintain the existing culture on the region.
By creating clearly defined boundaries between land and water in this previously ambiguous landscape, we are able to accommodate efficient water based transport systems, such as a ferry system and water taxis along the Pulo River which acts as a spine (not unlike a main road) to the proposal and encourages trade -based programs and economies along its edge between new and existing communities.
The project allows for an expansion of the brief requiring 800 individual homes and one significant building by proposing that new housing be built within the double walls, so that the existing building stock in the interior can be upgraded as necessary or desired. To simply provide a solution for 800 new families in the existing community in the context of the significant threats now evident in the existing settlements is short-sighted and inadequate. Any proposal must accept the limitations of any small scale or temporary expedient ‘quick fixes’. By using a ‘kit-of-parts’ system of in the design, based upon local materials especially plastics and technology, the proposal provides a resilient design system when catastrophes occur in addition to enabling the community to have more control of the building systems when they want to upgrade the houses or buildings after the problems have passed. Resilience in the Terrain of Water (Embracing Land Water + Community) is the key to the future of these communities.