Wetland cities

In the process of recovering wetlands, the replacement of land transport, which are supported by roads, for those of a river nature supported by the natural infrastructures of watercourses, implies the connection of the different aqueous flows simultaneously with those who are human.

The project is worked on three scales. First, in a territorial macro scale, which is framed in the relationship between the layout of cities and water, and in the materialization of their connections through a new river public transport system. This, through the opening of a canal inside the city of Valdivia, as a kind of water tram that allows at the same time, to rehydrate and recover wetlands with excess water from floods and rains.Second, an intermediate scale of planning, the new processes and densification systems that the city needs to develop in order to supply the lack of building land, are associated with the integration of wetlands into the urban structure, building a symbiotic relationship between spaces, urban and natural.The project proposes the construction of floating structures, which function as the extension of the urban network over wetland ecosystems, neighborhoods that are sustained by hybrid anthropic ecosystems, which share and take advantage of the conditions of a natural environment. And finally, a micro scale that addresses the design of transition spaces between land and water, specifically in the integration of aquatic transport to conventional urban dynamics. In order to materialize the transfer from an aquatic environment to a terrestrial one, the project proposes the design of intermodal stations that articulate the superposition of the new canal with the structuring roads of the city, and consequently, the flow of people between watercraft and buses, a kind of reticle that allows continuity between spaces and enviroments. Regarding the incorporation of this transport plan to Valdivia itself, the idea is to link this system to the dynamics of the city, trying to reduce travel times and the dramatic increase in the motorization rate.