Akhyar Razzaq

Advisor: Mimi Locher

The image shows an old steel bridge spanning a river, with abstract architectural drawings overlaying the scene. Bare trees and a modern building appear in the background under a light blue sky.
The poster titled "Architecture at the Edge" explores the relationship between architecture and river environments, featuring a river graphic, cross-sectional landscape diagram, and key resources. It includes annotations on soil types, water levels, and land features.
The diagram explores the intersection of architecture, environment, and people, focusing on themes like "Adaptive Reuse" and "Reconnecting with Nature." It includes text on water shifts, Red River proximity, and district relationships
The image illustrates river processes, focusing on meandering and avulsion mechanisms. Diagrams show the progression of river meanders over time, with arrows indicating flow direction and sediment deposition. Text explains the self-reinforcing nature of meandering and how avulsions occur due to sediment buildup.
The image features a circular diagram depicting the seasonal flow of water in Winnipeg and the Red River, with each season represented by distinct textures and colors. It incorporates the Indigenous medicine wheel, symbolizing the Four Directions and life cycles.

Architecture at the Edge

Is it possible to make new spaces at the edge, where the city meets the river, that are accessible to the public yet still possess all the wonderment and excitement of the unknown? Where there is danger, the thrill, the purity?  How can architecture be an effective invitation to the river/water? 

Leonardo da Vinci described water as "the vehicle of nature" ("vetturale di natura"), believing water to be to the world what blood is to our bodies.1 Water is an essential part of the human experience. Most of the time, cities are founded where there are rivers. The water, symbolized by the river, is the bearer of life and a connection between people to their natural environment. But over the history of urban development, this relationship has consequently undergone a continuous process of change which has seen communities in turn negating their riverside context. 

Winnipeg has been experiencing a similar dilemma where the Red River, a Canadian heritage river that meanders through the city has been overlooked. The river in majority is either a backyard for private residences or in parallel to public parks. The connection between the water and people is mostly hindered which makes the people not able to enjoy the river and its phenomenon. This makes the case for designing the built environment on riverbank in such a way that it reconnects the people to the water. This mediation through architecture is imagined in ways that it amplifies, captures, engages and frames the Red River. Spatial experiences can be choreographed to bring the people to the river to form new connections and ways of engaging.  

Water can be sometimes sharp, sometimes sweet, sometimes thick or thin, sometimes invigorating, sometimes poisonous. It suffers change into as many natures as are the different conditions it passes through. The Red River can undergo these changes as changing weather, activity, context and water quantity can bring about these different conditions. These conditional changes and states can be a way of sparking interest and engaging people spatially to their natural environment and contexts.  

Rescources 

  1. Witcombe, Chris. n.d. "H2O - The Mystery, Art, and Science of Water." Christopher L.C.E. Witcombe. Accessed November 26, 2024. http://arthistoryresources.net/.