The Membranearchitecture & landscape competition

The idea of ​​dividing a place either as water or land is a cultural construction that has been maintained for centuries through a static and mechanistic view of the territory. We have drawn aerial maps that state a clear boundary that define a static location for water. However, water has never responded to such boundaries we have created and probably will never respond. Rivers are always changing courses and flooding happens through rain. We have canalized rivers, hidden the pipes in which water flow, and separated ourselves from water. 

We now face the problem of water reaching places that have not been designed for her and looking at is as a catastrophe. And it is, but it is a catastrophe that has been created by us, it is by trying to control and place static boundaries, by imposing instead of allowing, by restraining instead of holding, by resisting instead of surrendering. We are choosing to invite life. We are choosing to hold and surrenderer to an ever changing medium where life manifests.

This project presents a strategic design based on inviting water to flow in and out, just as water usually does in an aquatic terrain like Vejle. We are interested in working with the technical and physical solutions in response to climate change and rising water levels, as well as the cognitive and cultural processes in our relationship with water.

What would happen if we had to change the imaginary dividing line? Could we change the relationship of water to a reality that does not consist in limiting it, but in allowing and inviting? Instead of designing an edge or a wall, can we not prepare for a flood of terrain as a state of the landscape? Can we afford to design through an adaptive and non-defining structure specific to change over time?