Over the past thirty years I have observed the gradual disappearance of the Strzyża stream from the landscape of my hometown of Gdańsk. I still remember exploring its lush riparian forest with my grandfather when I was a child. But over time, shopping malls and highways replaced the forest. As the stream slowly disappeared before our eyes, we began to speak about it with nostalgia.
With this project, I wanted to find out why it disappeared and how could I bring it back. The government buried two kilometres of the Strzyża underground and sold the land above to various investors. Today, some plots that cover the Strzyża belong to commercial companies, some to privatized neighbourhoods, and the rest is still owned by the municipality. There is no coherent planning policy for the stream as a whole.
The consequences of channelling the Strzyża through underground pipes are catastrophic. Rainwater collected in the concrete canal of the creek has nowhere to go, and so it floods the city. Because the stream is invisible, citizens are not warned about rising water levels. Besides the damage caused by dangerous floods, the disappearance of the Strzyża also means the loss of our collective memory. During medieval times monks harnessed its rapid waters to produce beer, but now we have lost touch with this rich river landscape. The only time we see the Strzyża is when it floods the city. The goal of my graduation project is to restore the physical presence of the Strzyża and explore ways in which residents can coexist with the flooding creek. In an age of climate change, bringing our lost rivers back into our lives is a necessity. Their natural riparian landscape buffers and stores rainwater. Their meandering watercourses flow more slowly than canalized ones. A planned reappearance will bring the Strzyża back into the consciousness of people living alongside it and new resilient actions will help us to live ‘with’ the stream rather than experience its absence.
The way to restore the Strzyża is through various interventions: from engineered investments on municipal land to simple DIY actions on privatized sites. The multitude of owners along the river make a single top-down plan impossible. Existing conditions call for choreographed and precise actions facilitated by collaborations between various owners. Only together can we deal with the consequences of the lost ecosystem of the Strzyża.
With this project, I wanted to find out why it disappeared and how could I bring it back. The government buried two kilometres of the Strzyża underground and sold the land above to various investors. Today, some plots that cover the Strzyża belong to commercial companies, some to privatized neighbourhoods, and the rest is still owned by the municipality. There is no coherent planning policy for the stream as a whole.
The consequences of channelling the Strzyża through underground pipes are catastrophic. Rainwater collected in the concrete canal of the creek has nowhere to go, and so it floods the city. Because the stream is invisible, citizens are not warned about rising water levels. Besides the damage caused by dangerous floods, the disappearance of the Strzyża also means the loss of our collective memory. During medieval times monks harnessed its rapid waters to produce beer, but now we have lost touch with this rich river landscape. The only time we see the Strzyża is when it floods the city. The goal of my graduation project is to restore the physical presence of the Strzyża and explore ways in which residents can coexist with the flooding creek. In an age of climate change, bringing our lost rivers back into our lives is a necessity. Their natural riparian landscape buffers and stores rainwater. Their meandering watercourses flow more slowly than canalized ones. A planned reappearance will bring the Strzyża back into the consciousness of people living alongside it and new resilient actions will help us to live ‘with’ the stream rather than experience its absence.
The way to restore the Strzyża is through various interventions: from engineered investments on municipal land to simple DIY actions on privatized sites. The multitude of owners along the river make a single top-down plan impossible. Existing conditions call for choreographed and precise actions facilitated by collaborations between various owners. Only together can we deal with the consequences of the lost ecosystem of the Strzyża.
Title: Choreographing resilience around the flooding Strzyza creek
Location: Gdansk, Poland
Year: 2020-2021
Team: (teachers) Jarrik Ouburg, Anna Fink, Nikol Dietz
Location: Gdansk, Poland
Year: 2020-2021
Team: (teachers) Jarrik Ouburg, Anna Fink, Nikol Dietz