Responding to msg by craven@xxxxxxxxxxx () on list Design-L
David:
While in the Netherlands, check out another kind of green
architecture: the legendary, centuries-old reclamation of land
from the sea, the polders project, earthworks engineered at a
remarkably ambitious scale.
Elaborate infrastructure includes dikes, pumping systems
(watermills, etc). Beneficiaries include dry sites for new
housing. Modernism indeed. To think that a few extant
stylistically 'modernist' De Stijl projects are all that many
architecture students seek out when exploring that country.
I understand that after years of ongoing struggles with the
North Sea, suffering ecological imbalance and other fallout,
current thinking suggests the sea be allowed to reclaim its
own. The cost of invasive engineering has been too great.
A cautionary tale for engineer and architect alike.
Note similar thinking by U.S. Corps of Engineers re
mid-American flood plains policy.
Bon voyage,
Deborah Natsios
David:
While in the Netherlands, check out another kind of green
architecture: the legendary, centuries-old reclamation of land
from the sea, the polders project, earthworks engineered at a
remarkably ambitious scale.
Elaborate infrastructure includes dikes, pumping systems
(watermills, etc). Beneficiaries include dry sites for new
housing. Modernism indeed. To think that a few extant
stylistically 'modernist' De Stijl projects are all that many
architecture students seek out when exploring that country.
I understand that after years of ongoing struggles with the
North Sea, suffering ecological imbalance and other fallout,
current thinking suggests the sea be allowed to reclaim its
own. The cost of invasive engineering has been too great.
A cautionary tale for engineer and architect alike.
Note similar thinking by U.S. Corps of Engineers re
mid-American flood plains policy.
Bon voyage,
Deborah Natsios