Zeeland Earthworks

Recomposition of an Altered Landscape

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Abstract

The project takes the increasingly polluted and flood prone coast line of the Scheldt estuary as the basis for a new coastal condition, centred on the re-composition of the sediment of the river. As a third option between dike raising and depoldering the coastline of Zeeland, a design for a new line of defence is
developed which controls the inflow of storm water, and collects sand, silt and clay. The collected clay is processed in a ceramics factory capturing heavy metal pollutants and preventing them from the reaching the polder system. The primacy of material transformation through landscape is the key concern of the project, where the daily flows of sediment and water of the Scheldt are performed as architectural rhythms, cuts and insertions in a new boundary edge. Through this research, the existing design parameters of the coastline are questioned and expanded to include multiple actors, varying future conditions and an aesthetic and atmospheric dimension.