A vision of Warsaw in which, as a result of the rewilding proposed in the project, pools form coinciding with the periodic surges of the Vistula river.
Contrary to the popular opinion, the Vistula is a braided river i.e. it consists of an entire network of watercourses, reservoirs and wetlands, rather than just a single channel, a simple line on the map. This is why we propose to look at Vistula’s presence in Warsaw anew: to take into consideration its entire hydrographic system. We aim to create a new Park of Island Transitions: transformed biannually according to the rhythm of floods and sculpted by the sediment carried by the current. Beyond the embankments, the new Water Allotments, Drifting Flowerbeds and the Millennium Hydrotrail will complement the old Vistula riverbed.
The new, natural swimming ponds, hydrophyte plantations, and water transport connections will facilitate safe ways to take advantage of the riverside. The wetscape will adapt to the natural periods of abundance of water and mitigate the weather extremes: during droughts it will distribute the necessary amount of water and during heavy rainfall it will slow down and retain the stormwater runoff. Forming accordingly to the river’s periodical surges, the floodplains will restore the pulse of the river to Warsaw. Allowing the city’s nature to run wild again is the response to the future challenges of the climate change.
- Water allotments Chinampa
- Raised gardens located above the thousand-year water level, beyond the reservoirs of water for periods of drought
- Drifting flowerbeds
- Helophyte filters, hydroponic and aquaponic systems
- Drifting Architecture
- Natural swimming pools rely on aquatic plants that act as organic filters
- Underwater shelves for hydrophyte plantations
- Water playscape
CENTRALA presupposes the existence of the memory of the landscape and assumes that in the case of extreme weather phenomena, water will always find its old riverbeds.
Warsaw hydrological system in 1870 and 2015, with visible results of dehydration and drying of the soil for development, drainage and construction of underground canals, as well as regulation and narrowing of the Vistula riverbed. Illustration CENTRALA, 2018