Project entry 2020 for Middle East Africa
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Inundation Harvest in Iran
Flood-Gardens: This is where all the urban floods are guided for watering 35 hectares of date gardens, filling up flood water reservoirs, and injecting water into the aquifer for further use during the dry season. The dried up flood-gardens will be revived by restructuring flood paths inside the city and reconnecting the flow of floodwaters into them. This method of gardening is native to the region and is based on a deep traditional ecological knowledge.
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Inundation Harvest in Iran
Flood Paths in the Organic Fabric of the City: The project aims to restructure all the main flood paths in the city by designating a new layer of shallow but wide flood paths in urban fabric. Dry most of the year, these paths guide the flow of flood towards the flood-gardens. Also they provide a new layer of urban greenery for the streets. Finally, the flood paths and the redesign of public spaces surrounding them prevent future flooding of adjacent land uses.
Last updated: November 13, 2021 Bandar-e Kong, Iran
Saving Fresh Water Mission
Saving every drop of rare tropical rain from returning to the saltwater of the Persian Gulf had been a historical mission of the people of Kong. The sophisticated ecological structure, which had been developed over centuries to accomplish this mission, was dismantled during recent context insensitive development of the city. As a result, we now have 35-hectare dried palm gardens, dozens of empty flood-water reservoirs, and a severe water shortage in the growing city. Recent projects have tried to deal with this water crisis with hundreds of kilometers of pipelines and huge water desalination plants. This project aims to revitalize this ecological structure to save increasing rainwater for developing the agricultural sector and urban green spaces.
Making Flood-Gardens Green Again
If you look at a 1950s aerial image of Kong, you can identify 35 hectares of palm gardens, which more or less remained until the present time. The only difference is that they are no longer green and fruitful, and almost all of them have been abandoned. This unfortunate phenomenon has been the result of the destruction of the ecological structure that had irrigated these gardens for centuries. The recent development has vanished the flood paths, emptied the flood-water reservoirs, and raised the underground salted water. This project aims to revitalize these palm gardens through a series of planning and design actions and make them a source of revenue for local citizens again as it had been for centuries.
Making Peace between Traditional Wisdom and Expert Knowledge
Despite some improvement, the city of Kong has environmentally, economically, and socially suffered a lot from turning its back to its rich ecological wisdom on how to live in this environmentally sensitive area, where their livelihood depends on the sea water for sailing and fishing and their life depends upon the scarce fresh water for drinking and farming. Ecological wisdom has been able to create a balance between these two critical aspects of living in Kong. The expert knowledge that has been translated in different urban and regional plans in the last half a century has overlooked this wisdom and upset this balance. In this project we aim to bridge the gap between these two apparent swear enemies through providing opportunities for dialogue towards mutually defined goals.