Water diviner

The water-diviner is capable of finding water under stones. Everybody looks at him in amazement, completely confused And he, armed with a simple wooden mechanism, scours theterritory until he point out- with complete certainty - the place to dig the well. The people around him look at each other in disbelief, but after he has solved the task, everyone locks at each other with admiring.The water-diviner is not a magician, he doesn’t have Supernatural talents. The water-diviner has a technique. He respect certain strategies when he walks around a piece of land. He follows clues and he isn’t the one who digs the well, but the one who point out the place.....

Strategy number 1: Finding water

Following water

Sege aa catchment area lies in the southwest of Sweden.Sege aa catchment area covers a total of 333 km2.Risabergabecken further west, cover about 30 km2.Sege aa and its tributaries has over the past 150 years been subjected to increased emission of nitrogen and phosphorus from both communities and agriculture.Meanwhile, a radical change of the landscape has led too a lost of self-purifying capability. Much of the water has been led trough water pipes and has been straightened, and the wetlands has been covered up. The consequences has been that natural conditions for thedigestion of nutrients has decreased. Since the early1900s, the area of wetland in the catchments area has decreased by about 90% and distance open water has decreased by about 50%.Nutrients causes problems not only in the rivers and lakes, but also in the sea. The pollution of the sea, results in a sharp growth of algae’s. Dead algae fall down to the bottom and decomposition leads to oxygen deficiency. As a result, it could lead to fish death in big scale.Phosphorus transport to the Øresund is about 10 tons pr.year (average for period 1990-2006).

MALMØ

OXIE

SEGE

SKÅNE

Smaller streas in the area

RISABERGA BECKEN

The streams catchment area, and sub-catchment area

During the process of evaluating and searching for pound and wetland loca-tions in Seges catchment area has the need for a detailed breakdown of sub-catchment areas become clear, this by a systematic review of maps.The work is exemplified below with bigger and smaller catchment areas, di-vided into smaller areas in the most detailed level.

Protections Zone:With the protection zone means a zone between water and arable land with grass and herbs, and preferably also shrubs and trees. The with of the zone should be at least 5 meter and no fertilizer or pesticide may be used in this area. The with of the protection zone varies between 5 and 10 meters (today usually 6 m, according to EU directive).

Environmental benefits:

- The transportation of soil particles and nutrients ( mainly phosphorus) from arable land to watercourses decreases.- Decreased erosion in the water-ditches.- The potential for direct deposit of fertilizer and pesticides in water decreases.- Trees and shrubs shade the stream, which prevents overgrowth and reduce the need for cleaning, by lowering the water temperature.- Important corridors for the animals in the agricultural landscape are being created.- Availability for people will increase.

Examples of protections zones between the arable land and the stream/water.

MALMØSEGE

OXIE

RISABERGABECKEN

Smaller streams in the areaCity zone

Catchment area

SKÅNE

Pounds and wetlands

Pounds and wetlands have an important function when it comes to natural purification processes. The processes that make the water cleaner is sedimentation (nutrient-rich particles sink to the bottom), denitrification (water soluble nitrogen is converted by bacteria into the air nitrogen, which is harmless tothe environment) and through absorption of nutrients (plants take up nutrients in the pond). Ponds and wetlands are effective nutrient traps in the area. The degree of purification depends among others on the ponds design and age, and water retention in the pond.

Concept of pond and wetland.

The term pond in this context is a permanent body of water that is created to purify incoming water, and is beneficial to plants, animals and humans. The typical pond is made of a flat slope and has often an irregular shape, which is shaped by the landscape. The depth can vary between one (1,0) and three (3,0) meter. And the size is usuallyfrom 0,3 ha. till 5 ha. In periods of little rain the water level may be just beneath ground level. Aqua vegetation plays a prominent role in our wetlands. Wetlands is typical in the ponds edge zone, which means that the pond and habitats in our wetlands often are connected to one another.

The environmental benefits on ponds and wetlands.

- The water is cleaned when it comes to soil particles, nutrients, metals, pesticides and other harmful substances.- Habitat for wetlands-related plants and animals increases.- Recreation potential for people in the agricultural landscape increases.- Flood variations in the water can be reduced locally.- Environmental damage at the temporary discharges of oil, urine or other harmful substances can be limited.- Biotopes in the local area will increase.

The rhizome of water

SKÅNE

PondsWetlands

Smaller streams in the areaCatchment areaCity zonePondsWetlands

SKÅNE

SEGE

MALMØ

RISABERA BECKEN

OXIE

Sub- catchment area

To determine the size and boundaries of a catchment area, a map with elevation where the state of water is clear. in order to get better glance, you may want to first draw the arrows perpendicular to the height of the curves from higher to lower levels. These arrows indicate direction of movement of rainfall water.Water components can then gradually link together into coherent strings. In this way, the catchment areas approximate boundary and size are identified.

Catchment area size:

To get a high nutrient load in the ponds and wetlands, there should be large catchment areas (at least 100 times larger than the pond/ wetland).Catchment area of 100 hectares or more is often needed. If the ponds can adjusted accordingly to the catchment area, of course, we can work with small catchment areas and still get a good effect.

Soils:Ponds and wetlands can be build in most soils, although soils with high clay content are best because they provide a completely sealed pond.Sandy soil with permeability involves a risk of leaking that can cause dehydration during dry periods. The major technical limitation for construction of ponds and wetlands is the relationship between the soil surface level within the proposed pond area and the level of the running water. This ratio determines the soil volume it is needed to be excavated out and thereby how expensive the project becomes. The higher the water level is proportional to the surface of the soil, the better the conditions for creating a cost-effective pond/wetland.

MALMØ

SKÅNE

OXIE

The map showes that the topography gives the smal stream and its catch-ment areas the possibility to go into the outer part of the city.This gives the opportunity to create ponds and wetlands in the urban landscape.

The streams different sub-catchment areas

Øresund Øresund

Øresund Øresund

SEARCHING FOR WATER

Ponds in the city zone of Mamø, in the rural area between Oxie and the outer city zone of Malmø city. Some of the ponds are now visible while others remain buried and must be restored. Interesting for future development.

The agriculture land in the western Skåne, particularly near the larger cities such as Malmo, is not seldom the subject of various explorations plans. This may be the new road route. Wire rolls and the development of new residential areas or industrial areas. This has until now been a direct restriction in terms of the development of ponds and wetlands in the area. But recent years more people have become aware, and can see the quality of these natural water areas/resources. As an important resource when it comes to developing Malmö city in a sustainable ecological way. To the best, for the people and the environment in Malmo.

1,0 hectare

2,0 hectare

1,0 hectare

0,75 hectare

4,0 hectare0,5 hectare

0,5 hectare

1,5 hectare

1,0 hectare

1,0 hectare

1,0 hectare

1,5 hectare

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56

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11

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Strategy number 2: Finding the city

Understanding the city

In the past, most attempts to understand the city scientifically have not seen the city’smost obvious network - its street network – as being of scientific relevance or interest.But it is the street network that links the aggregations of buildings into a single system, it is what you see when you look down on a city, and it is what you navigate when youwalk or drive in a city. In all these senses, the street network seems to be the commonground between the real space of the city and our experience of it. They say something about how cities are structured spatially, how they work, and how they grow and change.

Networks of space have, in recent years, brought to light a fundamental link between thestructure and functioning of cities: that the configuration of the network is the primary shaper of the pattern of movement. In shaping movement, it alsoshapes the patterns of human co-presence - and of course co-absence – that seems to be the key to our sense that good cities are human and social things as well as physicalthings. This is a far reaching proposition, and, if true, as increasing evidence suggests itis, it has far reaching implication for how we think about cities and design them. Thelarge scale architecture of city space, which has been neglected for decades, mattersmuch more than we thought to the life of the city and how it comes into existence.In principle, this idea is not really new. Most designers believe that we can manipulatespace to create the emergent human patterns that are the source of our sense that cities are civilised, safe and pleasurable.

People make trips because the shops are there. But it is maybe not fundamental. Maybe the space network itself, shapes movement, then the shops are where they are because they are following the patterns of movement already created by the network. So we can not start with attraction if we want to understand this city. We should start with the network which creates the pattern of attraction. So the network view of the city is also a paradigm change. It puts everything in the city in a different order. Once we understand the relation between the network configuration and movement, we can begin to creating a networks of centres and sub-centres. This is the nature of the organic city which evolves over tens or hun-dreds of yearsto form the seamless web of busy and quiet places, with everything seem-ing to be in the right place, the organic city. How local places arise in cities depends as much on how it is embedded in its larger scale context as in its intrinsic properties. In fact, this is mabyetrue of space in general, and that the local-global relation has featured too little in our attempts to reproduce the excellencies of cities through design.

Malmö 2009

Malmö as fragmented city

Malmö global structures

Malmö high density city

Malmö local structures

City center Inner cityOuter city Rural area

Malmö

City zones

Buildings and the city of Malmø exist for us in two ways: as the physicalforms that we build and see, and as the spaces that we use and movethrough.

So what is space:

The first is that we have to learn to think of space not as the background to human activity, as we think of it as the background to objects, but as an aspect of everything human beings do, in the sense that moving through space,interacting with other people in space, or even just seeing ambient space from a point in it have a natural and necessary spatial geometry: movement is essentially a linear activity, interaction requires a convex space in which all points can see all others, from any pointin space we see a variably shaped visual field, and it is by accumulatingthese as we move through the complex patterns of space we find in buildings and cities that we somehow build an enduring picture of the pattern of space as a whole. This describes some aspect of how we use or experience space,and for this reason how buildings and cities are organised in terms of these geometric ideas is a vital aspect of how we create them, use them and understand them. For example, space in cities is for the most part linear – streets, boulevards, avenues, alleys and so on are all linear concepts - with occasional convex elements we call squares or public open spaces. So the language of city space is written in this geometric language reflecting human behaviour and experience.

Shoving main infrastructure inn and out of Malmø city. These human struktures makes spaces and human activity/movement. But creates also big barriers when it comes to social interaction between people in Malmø.

By filling these spaces, we see that the spaces are growing as the distance to the city-senter increase. This indicate different human activities in diffrent spaces. That means that different kind of people are attracted to their “ favor-ite space”, or because of financial reasons. This means spaces of segregation

1

2

3

1

2

3Studying the lines of the different zones in the city of Malmö ( Zone 1 - city center. Zone 2 - inner city. Zone 3 - outer city).

Going in to the different spaces

Shorter lines. Making more crosses.

Longer lines. Making fewer crosses.

Longest lines. Making less crosses

Different zones in the city have different line structures. Zone 1 -city center have short lines with many crosses. Creating an urban feeling in dense spaces. The different lines in the city makes different spaces, meaning different urban feelings. The different structures zones 1,2 and 3 makes little connections to the global structures. The local lines and the global lines are not working together. Few interesting meeting points. The spaces are looking into itself and not interacting with other spaces. Makes city development difficult. Need to find new structures.

Finding the structure of the DNA

Public green spaces in Malmö

City centerInner city Outer city Rural area

Mapping different qualities in selected districts; 1. City center, 2. Inner city, 3. Fosie and 4.Oxie

Analyzing the different districts by relations of green spaces, water, building density and open spaces.

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Malmö

Buildings

OXIE

FOSIE

CITY CENTER

INNER CITY

CITY CENTER

INNER CITY

FOSIE-

OXIE

Green space

Water

Open space

Building density and green areas (parks and water), as well as com-pactness and spaciousness in selected districts in the city of Malmö.

The graphs show the basic density and landscape structure in inner and outer Malmö city. Malmö is now a relatively green and spacious area, which has a high compactness of the inner city, but lack the density and compactness of the suburbs.Case study area includes a landscape around the ring road where strong inter-ests for urban development and different nature- landscape conservationinterests are meet. The area is located in the east of Malmö city, where the outer city zone meets the rural area with strong agriculture traditions.

Green structure - an arena of polarization in the urban planning, where there are contradictions between the green structure and urban development. It is therefore important to study this landscape at the local level in the citys outer zone in Malmö. With the expected continuing high population growth in com-bination with national and regional objectives for nature conservation, the city becomes the arena of conflicting interests - to build or preserve? As I already have shown, different spaces ( city zones) are isolating the different districts in the city from each other, and become a driving factor in a social segregation processes. Social segregation and income gaps between rich and poor areas are increasing, and calls for an development that creates links in and between the inner-outer city urban areas. At the same time, they represent an important resource as ecological potential areas. As part of the effort to meet national ob-jectives for both enviromental issues and biodiversity will the landscape around and in the city be an important aspect of Malmö as an sustainable city for the future.

The most compact unit in the inner city is provided by high density housing combined with key water routes and green areas. The parks and water kom-bined with high density givs “the right” urban felling.

The lowest compactness, in other words, the low-est urbanity, is located in areas that are only “green space”, For example, in rural areas, or no green space, such as industrial areas.

Less green areas, no water spaces, but high den-sity. Low spaciousness, indicating that inner city may have a shortage of outdoor nature. For future condensation it is needed more green areas, com-bined with new buildings. This will increase the compact unit.

Less dens. More open spaces but littel green spacesIn a densification process is the interaction between compactness and spaciousness important. When spa-cious unit is reduced, as it generally does with densi-fication, the compact unit should increase to maintain the urban environment more attractive.

In a densification process is the interaction between compactness and spa-ciousness important. When spacious unit is reduced, as it generally does with densification, the compact unit should increase to maintain the urban environment more attractive. This is an opportunity that does not appear to be utilized in the the outer city zones of Malmø. The risk with this develop-ment is primarily the single suburban zone reduces the attractiveness to the point that it runs on more urban sprawl in the spacious periphery. The decrease in compactness that currently takes place in the outer city zone is likely to create a less competitive and less space-efficient region as a whole

Macro - city

Micro - biology

Like the micro organism in water form a pattern of lines, the city forms new lines by looking for alternative streets/routes in the purpose of braking up different spaces/ar-eas. In this way new patterns can be build, and the social interaction can develop.

Space shapes movement

The problem in Malmø is that all the main streets ( global streets ) is occupied with car traffic. This becomes both a physical and mental barrier This streets take you directly from the city center and out in the rural area. The main streets ( because of the heavily traffic) makes barriers to the different city spaces. This leads to segregation and different social zones in the city. By locking for alternative spaces we can brake down these barriers between these physical and social spaces. Once we have this line network, we can calculate, say, the integration value of each line in relation to all others, and color up as usual. The global structures ( long lines) are given the colors red, yellow and orange. The local structures are given the colors pink, blue and purple. When ever tree colors mets in the network ( one global structure and two local structures) we mark a connection point ( green circle) . A new interesting space will then occur. And the the lines between the green circles vill guide us through the city in new way. These green circle can be new green structures inn the city or new social interactions spaces. The lines between the green circles will brace down the global structure, By this a urban development of Malmø can develop in an including way in all the different spaces.

People

Spaces

New spaces

People move inn lines Interact in segregated space Interact in new visual fieldsconnecting different lines and making new spaces for interac-tion among different people in Malmø

Lines are finding new connectionsWhere the different lines (streets) meets ( valued by color) new interesting spaces are made

The new local connections are braking down the old global structures

Local structures (lines) are making new meeting ( green) spaces.

Braking the barrier of the Ring -road ( global structure)

The new green spaces in the city meeting water ( ponds) in the rural area. Together they make a new city strukture

New ecological landscape

Breaking trough the global structure ( Ring road )

Case study area includes a landscape around the ring road where strong interests for urban development and different nature- landscape conservation interests are meet. The area is located in the east of Malmö city, where the outer city zone meets the rural area with strong agriculture traditions.

Ring road

Project:

Defined landscape

Farmland

Movement

Green

Citywater

water

Concept model

ConnectionsArchitectureLandscapeGardensWater

TRANSFORMING THELANDSCAPE

Water belt

No longer lovly volumes under the light, butrather ambiguous landscapes under the sky. Fields within other fields.No longer strict geometric schemes but rather freer and more meaningful configurations.A new desire to lift the background to the surface,in short, to turn the ground and the surface intothe object of the project.

Water belt

No longer lovly volumes under the light, butrather ambiguous landscapes under the sky. Fields within other fields.No longer strict geometric schemes but rather freer and more meaningful configurations.A new desire to lift the background to the surface,in short, to turn the ground and the surface intothe object of the project.

Systems, actions or processes capable of growing and developing, mutating and transforming, varying, deforming and beingprecise and flexible, at once determinate andindeterminate

Copenhagen

Malmö city

Risaberga-backen

Ponds

Landscape to develop

Experimental fields for developing new ecological food products.

Agriculture fields.For producingecological food.

New housing.To prevent sprawl.

New crossings over/

under the highway

Streams and ponds in the land-scape

Landscape to define Landscape to explore

Exploration of potential - Three key con-cepts, drawn from the fields of urban ecol-ogy and landscape urbanism has been used to examine and identify how the po-tential of green architecture might bee in a growing region: Availability, resilience and readability. The last two concepts are described by the American landscape theorist Julia Czerniak as “essential for the social, ecological and generative role in large green spaces in the contemporary city. Resilience is also an important con-cept in environmental research where eco-logical resilience is the ability for ecosys-tems to resist or adapt to change without losing the capacity to produce ecosystem services

Walking and bike path

under the highwayUsing water (Risaberga-becken)

to cover up/go over the highway

Stepping ponds.Ponds linked together with newwater structure

Attraction as astarting point.Experimental design area for food production

informal entrances. Combining new hous-es with water

open landscape withvisual links

Means of links

Means of entrances

With build land-scape

New crossings over/

under the highway

New hous-ing.To prevent sprawl.

Crossing 1. Over the highwayCrossing 2.

Under the highway

Concept model: Floating landscape

Working with 1:1 sketch. Exploring the landscape

Models of possible crossings over and under the highway

1. Floating landscape over the Ringroad

View from under the crossing landscape2. Risabergabacken as an open installation under the highway Leading the way out in the open landscape.

Crossings:To combine the west side and the east side of the highway

Highway

New restored ponds as elements in forming a new landscape.Ponds are connected with new in-frastructure of smallwater canals

Old ponds regestred in the traditional agricultural landscape

Ponds: Designing the new landscape

Old pond. Not active. Have little effect on the sur-rounding landscape

Restored pond. Increasing its effect on the surrounding landscape

Isolated ponds. Do not work together.The potentianal is not fully used.

By small water canals in the landscape ponds are starting to work together. Icreas the wild life and the production in the area

Restoring the traditional and natural ponds in the agricultural landscape gives multiple effekts The water are giving structure

to an transformation of the landscape. A new landscape will appear.

Land and water are two opposites, like yin and yang that produce growth and prosperity when they come together. Dynamic processes of nature often appear where land meets water. To understand the water as a site of a dynamic landscape, both as urban and ecological and rebuild the industral agricultural landscape into a new sustain-able land of multiple food production.

Like a rhizome, the water gives life to many spe-cies, and at the same time cleans up the nutri-ents before it goes into the ground water

Agriculture fields.For producingecological food.

Streams and ponds in the land-scape

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Agricultural land outside Malmö today

Agriculture land outside Malmö tomorrow. New field of permaculture. Water structures are giving life to a sustainable agriculture

Example of an new renovated “activ pond” in the landscape. Giving life and an sustain-able structure for a multiple agriculture by new water structures in the landscape.The fabulous cultural landscapes which the territory of Skåne is renowned for. From this point of view the new water structure could be treated as a platform om which the es-sence of life and healthy interactions with nature could be grasped from.

Water are giving life

Water

New “green” water infrastructure Increased production

Experimen-tal fields for developing new eco-logical food products.

New hous-ing.To pre-vent sprawl.

Pondsin theurban

Ponds in the new landscape.

Protection zone. A zone be-tween water and arable land with grass, herbs and trees.

Green space for the pro-duction of organic food and for recreation.

Experimental gardeningFor new ecological products.

Exampel of pond th the landscapein of a new sustainable residential area

Residential area integrated in the stream (Risabergabacken andrestored ponds. The subject of land-scape investigation is a matter of dealing with resources, primarily ground and water: the articulation of the inhabited with the territorial.

Example of design ponds integrated in the production land and new gardens

Malmö Today Malmö Tomorrow

Industrialized agriculture, mass production of selected products, specialized tasks.the soil becomes depleted, desiccation and erosion. Need to supply more and morefertilizer to keep up production of food. Withthe consequence of contaminated groundwaterand polluted oceans.

Agricultural production today

Möllevången today. productsspecialist for transportation world wide

Elastic is a body, system, order, organisation or relationship that is deformable or alterable by the action of a force, in an evolutionary logic. This elastic dimension can guide us inn a new directionin which the producer and the consumer can be seen as one for a sustaineblefuture.

Produser Consumer

Sustainable ecological gardening

Möllevången Tomorrow.Selling local products

TRANSFORMING

THE LANDSCAPE

Landscape strategiesArchitecture Natur Sustainable society

People, plants and animals need water to live and flourish. No city can exist without water. Water can be used to enhance the liveability of cities. But water, whether in a stream or ponds is a natural element and requires careful management. After centuries of living with water, it are the no-developed cultures, in particular, which have developed the wisdom and experience to exploit nature and construct a landscape as a solution. We also had the this knowledge, when every man had a relation and knowledge of the landscape and the elements. It is time to take this wisdom back. This wisdom of the landscape makes a culture sustainable for the future.

No landscape, no culture.

Malmö a new city to walk

a new city to feel

Water Landscape

City Nature

G.A. Bergen School of Architecture, Norway, Autumn 2009