Professional Desk - A MONUMENT TO WATER

 

Project submitted by l'AUC and CENDES+TENarchitects & Planners

l'AUC is a professional architecture and urbanism company based in Paris. Since its creation in 1996. l'AUC develops a counter-current posture with regards to architectural and urban issues in the context of French, European and international urban design. By questioning the commonly accepted hierachy between project scales and placing them all at an equivalent level of importance, l'AUC's analysis and design methods establish permanent back and forth movements and transversality from the territorial and metropolitan scale up to the detail.

CENDES+TENarchitects & Planners Pte Ltd (UEN: 201222234K) was incorporated in Singapore, which is a professional Architectural and Master Planning firm approved by The Board of Architects of Singapore (LICENCE NO. BOA-LC120/2022-2023).  It is one of the handful of Private Limited Companies that can provide both planning and architecture consultancy in Singapore.  Other than Singapore, CENDES+TENarchitects & Planners Pte Ltd has associated operation that includes CENDES+TENarchitects & Planners Consultants (Shanghai) Ltd serving the Greater China Region.

CENDES+TENarchitects & Planners has nearly 15 years of consulting experience in planning and architecture projects, our consultancy service extends from large-scale Master Planning to Urban Design, Architecture, Landscape Design, Interior Design and Specialty Planning and Design such as Eco-Tourist Resorts and Industrial Parks.  Since its inception, together with our international associated office, our practice has planned an area of more than 1500 kilometer square and designed more than 130 projects globally.

A Monument to Water 

Won honorary mention in the "Runway for your Imagination" Ideas Competition organised by URA, SIA and SIP. (in collaboration with l'AUC Paris)

WATER AS CIVILIZATION

Life and civilization are founded on aqueous basis. The world is in constant flux, the culture in ebb and flows.

Each culture, each society, relates to water in its own way. While being a practical necessity for humans and their economies, it is a lively element that is fun to play with, in and by.

Infrastructuring water allowed civilizations to thrive, from ancient Egypt in the Nile valley, to the aqueducts and roman baths in antique Rome, to Varanasi and its relation to the Ganga River, to modern cities such as Haussmannian Paris.

Water management systems have been conceived all around the world for the specificity of the local environment. It is to the contemporaneity the aim to inherit those knowledges and to link them, passing from a local to a global lore.

Here, the potential of a low-tech infrastructure for water is to install something that enables a culture we don’t know yet, and to leave something that can be nourished, contained and held.

A MONUMENT TO WATER

The Runway is the almost exact scale of Central Park in New York, the Louvre perspective in Paris, or the Water Parterre in Versailles. It should be used as the main central figure of PLAB City.

We propose to transform the Runway into a monument to Water that addresses both practical and cultural issues.

An attractive public space and active community space in the heart of the new town, as well as a water management system.

Water is the resource of the 21st Century, just as oil was the resource of the 20th Century.

We propose that the Runway becomes an explicit and tangible manifestation of the transition from a world,  society  and  cities   of   artificiality (with its airports and  freeways)  towards  a  world, society and cities reconnected to nature and humanness.

Along  the  transformed   PLAB   Runway   as we envision it, water is useful and fun to play with. The  devices   we    propose    are    designed as a comprehensive water management system for the entire new town as well as meant to provide highlights along the  Runway promenade  for people to enjoy.

The devices we propose will not only be the base of water management infrastructure for the whole new town, but will also provide a public "cooling effect" as well as "playgrounds" introducing life into the landscape. There will be  drinkable water and sprinkles to cool the Runway promenade along the way.

 

Lets zoom into four of these devices.

THE STEPPING WATER BASIN

The stepwells are a traditional heritage of the Indian culture.

Reminiscent of the Ghats from the culture of the Ganges River, the stepping geometry we propose for this secton of the runway is designed to accommodate large fluctuation of water from the rain season to the dry one. This section of the transformed runway allows users, at any moment of the year, accessibility and proximity to water.

The stair is therefore a generous public space that stimulates an active interaction by the public

THE PALM GROVE

The palm grove flourishes over an irrigation system designed according to the liquid principle of the communicating vessels. The water flows from the main canal to a capillary system of interlaced spillways that bring the water to the palms bases.

The shade offered by the plants welcomes the public to a fresh natural-artificial landscape.

The palm grove thus provides the coolest spot along the transformed runway's climate.

THE FOUNTAIN

The fountain is situated at the very centre of the runway and of the proposed developments. The right border of the basin, towards the mangrove, recalls the geometry of an amphitheatre.

Here the public can sit to enjoy water plays, the breeze and vapour that the fountain creates.

The Fountain thus becomes the symbolic centre of the future new town.

THE OPEN AIR NATURAL SWIMMING POOL AND THE PHYTO DEPURATION

The Olympic swimming pool is the active spot of the transformed runway's infrastructure. Since no chemicals are needed for the maintenance of the natural swimming pool, the depuration of the exhausted water passes through a series of plants basins. The phyto depuration cleans the water, which will continue its way to the end of the infrastructure and, further up, the Mangrove.