The team
The city together with IPR selected 4 teams to draw a landscape and urban development strategy for the Rohan & Liben area with elaboration in a housing project, a park and in a participation plan. Our team included the Dutch firms DS and VenhoevenCS, and the Czech firms MOBA and Aquatis.
The assignment
The study area is part of the water safety program of the Vltava River in the center of Prague. Since the last major flood (2002), the area has been assigned to the river bed, meaning it will be flooded when the water level rises. Permits were already in place to dig an arm of the river through Maniny Park to lower the water level slightly. The client asked for a landscape-based development strategy, with an outline design for Maniny park and a housing project on the river’s edge, in Liben.
Making space of size
North of Prague, the river makes a sharp turn and the riverbed narrows. This congestion point causes additional water rise in the study area. We propose converting Rohan Island and part of Maniny Park into floodplains. These are 56 acres of obstacle-free grasslands which help biodiversity with native herbs. Management with sheep herds is already widely done elsewhere in Prague, in cooperation with reintegration programs. Above all, it is a landscape of great stature, accessible to everyone, in the middle of the city.
Sketch design residential building
On Liben Island, we propose a nature-inclusive housing development that, by building, increases the quality of life for all residents of the Vltava Valley. The buildings stand on a parking garage that is also the water retaining dike. At ground level are vegetable gardens connecting to the large area of vegetable gardens. Within this plan, the monument-worthy Koleta can be preserved and used for social purposes. The Corso connects urban developments to the river. It is a long paved space with rows of trees, seating and a substantial staircase to the park.
Sketch design Maniny park
The site for the more than 20-acre park has a long history. It was an industrial site with buildings and rail yards, then sports fields, a dreamed location for the Olympics, a dumping ground and sleeping place for the homeless, but in 2002 the river swept the area empty. The planned river arm through Maniny park is such a major intervention that it wipes all history from the area, it becomes tabula rasa. The contribution to the flood task can and should be designed more intelligently. We have reversed the direction of flow proposed by the client! And as a result, we can preserve history. The charming industrial heritage becomes setting for the treatment and drainage of stormwater from the adjacent neighborhood. Because part of the lowering of water levels comes from rainwater retention in the city. A smaller valley has been devised in the northern part, which directs rainwater to the river and lets in rising river water from the north. The released soil is used to create a refuge for people and animals.
Participation
Our landscape and urban strategy provides a sustainable landscape framework, ready for programming. For this, we have created an elaborated participation strategy with neighbors, foundations, sheep herders as a social integration program, and more.
Our entry stands out with the audacity to provide a great landscape experience for everyone in the center of the city. To combine housing development with natural building. And where others program, we choose a robust foundation and a large participation plan.
