Reviving Ponds in the Urban Network

Abstract

The pond is a low-lying ground intended to retain or detain both stormwater. In the past, building ponds was a common way to keep fresh water for livestock and irrigation. Due to the rapid urban development and the emergence of centralized water conservancy facilities, the traditional ponds have largely disappeared. One of the crucial examples of disappearing ponds is in Taoyuan Tableland, in the North of Taiwan. After economic development and the demographic boom, the number of ponds rapidly declined from 4521in 1904 to 745in 2020. (Yu, 2017) The phenomenon weakens the resilience of cities in the face of extreme weather conditions. When heavy rain comes, covered ponds lose water storage space, resulting in flooding, and when it has not rained for a long time, they can only rely on reservoirs for water supply. Therefore, this project explores the design interventions with landscape architecture, incorporating with the existing ponds, making the city more climate adaptive and enhancing public space quality.

Under rapid urbanization, the land use in the Taoyuan area is divided into urban and peri-urban areas. The test area includes the emerging urban area and the surrounding peri-urban areas. The applied design principles are robust, reflective, and flexible. The first principle focuses on integrating a robust pond system as a mediator between drought, too little, and flood, too much water. Reflective aims to ponds in the emerging urban area and the peri-urban area as models and transform traditional characteristics of the pond into four guiding design strategies: topography, hydrology, vegetation, and recreation. The ponds can transform into a pleasant public space through these strategies. Lastly, from a large scale, integrated pond water systems to individual ponds can be flexible to the changing circumstances. Sometimes, the ponds can be full of water, dry, and be a wonderland for people.

By reviving the pond system in the urban network, the project's tangible quality is making the city more resilient. On the other hand, the intangible quality gives withering traditional water systems an important role and re-overlap with people's living spaces.