The sensitive river scape, the sinuous territory

Abstract

This project explores the landscape potential of Taiwanese river valley in terms of integrating water and river management with urbanism within the context of a dense environment diversity as well as a highly sensitive and dynamic landscape. Taking one of the most illustrative river basin, Dajia River, the steepest river with the most water resource, as the study case, the project intends to test the hypothesis of perceiving mountainous river as opportunities for transforming the river valley as water-sensitive landscape infrastructures. Based on the theories of landscape urbanism, especially the discourses of landscape infrastructure, the project argues that by enhancing water sensitivity in living environment within river scape, the characteristic of landscape can help building a stronger identity for the territory and its inhabitants. Contextualizing the learnings from theories and practices with context analysis, the research integrates principles, strategic tools and spatial potentials at the regional scale, proposing operative landscape structures as the spatial framework for the future development of the river valley. Based on this spatial framework, strategies for transformation are introduced for upstream, midstream and downstream areas according to their respective situations. Then two zoom-in sites, one at the upstream and the other at the downstream areas, are selected to demonstrate possibilities and potentials through design intervention for integrating water infrastructure with spaces of local habitation and activities. To support the proposals with better feasibility, the project phasing and institutional framework will also be proposed, identifying the priority and potential actors in the process. With reflections on the contribution to the fields, suggestion to the current planning system, and evaluation of mutual influences between different sites within the river catchment, the thesis expects to provide a showcase with methodology, strategic tools, and spatial possibilities integrating different cases of interaction between human activities and river environment. More importantly, the project exhibits the spatial potential of a mountainous river landscape as an active role in engaging socioeconomic with nature, as well as guiding the spatial transformation of the territory for the future.