Survival in Flood

Introduction

In this case, I combine the park design and flood escape site for local residents. Meanwhile, starting from the construction of refuge and rescue site and residents’ living activity site, I puts forward suggestions and proposals in line with local culture and historical characteristics for the future site development and people’s lives, so as to help the site achieve flood shelter and have the power of sustainable development.

Information

Location: Shimen County, Hunan province ,China

Date: 2020.11-2020.12

Type: Climate Resilience& Design Research

Scale: 21ha

Individual Work

Part 1: Background Research

Part 2:STRATEGY: TOPOGRAPHY AS SOLUTION

Topography Analysis

After fully understanding the relationship between the site’s demand for refuge and its influencing factors and hydrology and topography, different escape route schemes, flood prevention and refuge strategies are formulated for the site.

Site Design

Modeling

I used cnc material to model the site and determine the possible water storage capacity of the site topography

Perspective

The site can be used both as an evacuation site during floods and as a park for recreational activities during the week.

Through setting culverts and depressions under the flood retaining dike to collect water, micro sunk Bay and aquatic plant planting, the site can be used as a water storage and point filtration. When living in the shelter unit, villagers can take water from the park; after the flood subsides, the surplus water can be returned to nearby farmland for irrigation through underground pipelines.

Thoughts

In 2010 when South China was hit by extraordinary rainstorms, the murky water ran waist-high, stranding people in their cars and turning streets into canals. When driving past the Three Gorges, whose water level had risen to dozens of meters above the ground at that time, I was shocked at the fact that the metropolis of Wuhan had been lying in a valley, exposed to “a bomb of floods” that might explode anytime. As I went deeper into this issue, I got to know that every year over 40 million Chinese fell victim to rainfall floods as the existing dams could hardly bear the consequences of frequent extreme weathers arising from climate change these years. In my research of Shimen Town, Hongkou City, I saw the difficulties in relocating villagers due to population pressure and demands for land use, despite the severe floods. That pointed to only one solution: the rural village must co-exist with the floods. Equipped with a cross-scale landscape perspective, we, designers, must learn to extend our landscape practices, beyond the community level, to tackle regional ecological issues.