Dynamic infrastructure by Janpata

The project is to propose a new dynamic infrastructural network that serves as a datum to the changing condition of the amphibious landscape, highlighting the dynamic features of the previously inaccessible site, as well as responding to the delicacy of the preserved natural park. 

First of all, to introduce the city of Cadiz. The city is situated on the southwestern part of the Spain and lies on a narrow spit of land by a bay of cadiz. There are 3 towns surrounding the bay of cadiz which is 1. cadiz 2.san fernando 3. puerto real which cadiz and puerto real has a population around 40,000 and san fernando is a town in the province of Cádiz, Spain. It is home to more than 97,500 inhabitants Covering an area of some 30 km2. , it is connected to Cadiz City by an eight kilometer strip of land and for centuries was connected on the rest of the mainland only by the Zuazo bridge. Most of the town around was divided by an area of wetland that some part of it, were used as natural park or some part that has been preserved with no accessibility. In the fact that wetland is one of a potential landscape that provide significant economic, social and cultural benefits. an important for primary products such as pastures, timber and fish and support recreational and tourist activities. important services to our environment; and when it disappears, so do those services. We lose vital flood protection, water cleansing, and food. People who hunt, fish, canoe, and photograph wildlife also rely on wetlands and All of the animals and plants that live in that habitat for all or part of their lives often have nowhere else to go. thats why wetland is so important to preserve.

So, My interest of the site is mainly based on its extreme contrast characters of the two lands, one highly dense with infrastructure and the other purely natural wetland which my site selected is a large peninsular of wet land along a sancti petri canal in the right hand side and atlatntic ocean in the left , the site including a 3 interesting aspect of landscape by 1 is the area of a marshland , and a swamp vegetation. 2.is an area that connect to a high depth of the sancti petri canal 3. is the estuary of the canal that connect to the atlantic ocean that’s also why there is no infrastructure connecting the San Fernando city and the extension of the Sancti petri that connect to A town of Chiclana de la Frontera.So these wetland is completely divided these two cities

Since there is an only Zuazo bridge to cross from San Fernando town that’s become a problem situated for people who lives in the city that has to go to the Sancti petri or Chiclana for a work or hang around. Most of people has to take a detour up above and downward to another place that taking more than an hour to reach there. So It approaches me to design a new dynamic infrastructure network that give dynamic experiences both directly and indirectly to people. The direct experience will be the physical experience on structures that constantly transform through tidal changes, and the indirect experience will be the structures that only act as an indicator, allowing people to know where to occupy and where not to occupy, or where is wet and where is dry. So here there is a total of 6 components through my site 1. is an express track that located on a part of back shore along the beach 2. is a local trail located on the wetland that experiencing an understanding of the wetland guiding to an different interesting wildlife observation spots,mostly for people who comes hiking At the same time I also propose an recreation spot that experiencing a wildlife by, 1. a bird observing area located on the landscape that has highly vegetation on marshland which that makes its fruitful as a wildlife resources , 2. is an area of fishing dock according to a depth of the water which become a hotspot for people to comes fishing , 3- rest station is where these two local trail and express track intersected, And the last one is a bridge that also a combination of these two contrasting infrastructure where its cross Sancti petri canal from San Fernando to another city.

The express infrastructure

These 3km linear infrastructure is the fastest connection from san fernando to chiclana de la frontera through a preserve wetland area, by the idea is mainly based on how to create a structure that not destroy a nature as a light structure. This structure consist of two lane of biking and walking but is not only serve a people as a boardwalk but also work as an indicator to understand a landscape better and allow people to know which part of the beach would be able to occupy or which is dangerous, by proposing an offset line of the area that people would occupy a beach 100meter away a shoreline and cut a section to understand a landscape in the different slope of a beach to construct a walkway in the same slope according to a bike lane . So the structure of walk lane could be adaptable during a change of the slope along the way.

The local trail

In this area where a trail is located is in the area of fore island dunes that include many types of landscape such as a swamp vegetation, barrier flat or a sand dune. The idea of creating this trail is mainly based on the understanding of the landscape by mark a point of landscape that be able to accessible on a dune island and a part that is a linkage between these 2 island by the part that be able to actually walk on the dune consist of this device as a guiding for people who comes hiking to understand that which part might be flooding abit form tidal changes or which part is completely dry.

Bird observing area

In the fact that there are a two primary resources being sought are food and nesting location for birds to migrate. So a bird observing spot is consisting of two circulation that allow people to access both when the tide is high and low, by when the tide is low there is also a specific area in shallow water where bird can reach fish both at the surface of water and when the tide is high the view changing according to a water surface that reaching to higher level of a dune and that’s make more landscape serve better for bird to hanging on a vegetation dune and to hunt a fish. And also there is a bird watch tower that is the combination of these two scenery for both when the tidal changes.

Fishing dock

Also the idea of placing a dock is the same system as a bird watch by where a dock placing fishing dock in different area according to where is the most spot for fishing in both low tide and high tide. by the best depth variation spot for fishing is around 6 meters from a water surface.so from this system would be able easily for people to know which dock would be the best time to go fishing and also each dock is be able to acces from a boat directly .

Rest station

The 2 Rest station is where these two local lane and express lane are intersected. The building is design to be a part of express link and a local trail. The design is respond in two terms of user in the way of provide a comfortable for people that want to continuous on the express lane and people that need to take a rest from their hiking on a trail. Consisting of restroom, café, or a rental equipment for water sport.

The tidal bridge

A tidal bridge is an amphibious bridge that across the Sancti petri canal to connect the towns of San Fernando and Chiclana de la Frontera. The bridge serve as a both walkway and a recreation center for both city san fernando and chiclana..

Due to a location of a tidal street is place on the estuary of Sancti petri canal that connect to an Atlantic ocean. The design is more focus on a tidal change of the water and the way of combining an express track and a local walk as in one. So the idea is by using opposite dynamics of the water flow of the tide as a generator for a new connection respond to occupants. From researching on the Cadiz tidal chart there is a semidiurnal tide in Cadiz which mean this areas have two tides and two low tides each day. When the two highs and the two lows are about the same height. By when the flow of water is low is around 8.00 am and 6.00 pm so this structure would serve better in a straight circulation for a workers who using this bridge as an express way. And when the tide is high around 11.00 am and 11.00 pm a bridge would activate more for tourist or people who come here for hang around as a recreation center by the structure would be able to present a center platform in each program more comfortable than when the tide is low due to the change of circulation according to a structure.

The design does not only allow access across the site allowing circulations to flow, but also giving people opportunities to discover and explore a bigger boundary of preserved natural sights in Cadiz. 

Cadiz, Spanish Coastal Dune Intervention by: Thanyathorn Mateekusontan

I have come to an interest on coastal condition of South-West Spain, how this stretch of coastline transform through time and how it effects life both inland and in water. I chose to study on Sand Dune, in which it is one of the main conditions along the coastline of Spain. This project is to propose a new typology of soft architecture that would accommodate the dynamic condition of the coastal dune landscape, as an alternative to permanent architecture that typically interferes with the ecology and the development of coastal dunes.

I will first start with introducing the overall Spain coast line, and then going into more details about the topic of “coastal dune”; what it is, its benefits to the natural ecology and geography, as well as its effects on the urban development of Spanish coastline. After that, I will be focusing on one site as a ‘test site’ for developing my prototype. I will propose an intervention based on the specificities of this site and demonstrate its effectiveness regarding its adaptability to the changing dune conditions over time as well as the changing programs.

The coastline of Spain is 7,883 km long, population of about 46 million people, and 60 percent of the people concentrates on the coastline. There are many types of coast, there are coastal lowlands with bays, deltas, river mouth, including wetlands and lagoons, beaches, cliffs and ports.

The facts that first interested me the most is that since 1960s until now, the Spanish coastline has been developing and rapidly transforming from naturally occupied coastline into urbanised occupations with new developments including buildings, and second homes.

see High Resolution PDF 

What is sand dune? A sand dune is a mount, hill of sand that lies behind parts of the beach. They are formed over many years when windblown, sand is trapped by beach grass and vegetations. Vegetations then anchor the dunes with their roots, holding them temporarily in place.

The typical sand dune transformations will start from beach to the incipient dune, to fore dune, yellow dune and to hind dune.

As an example in the Cadiz area, where I have analysed few areas along its coastline to show the relationship from the beach-front to the inner land, how sand dune becomes a big separation in between them.

Why do we preserve sand dunes? The main reason is firstly, sand dunes protect inland areas from storms, hurricanes, flood-water, wind and wave, and all the factors that cause damages to the inner land. Sand dunes are also the major habitats for coastal plants and animals.

In which relate back to a bigger picture, these damages lead to black spots all over the Spanish coastline, where there are destructions of sand dune occurring, which mostly is caused by wastewater, threats, and constructions of golf courses, resorts and residents. These massive actions have effects on the destruction of sand dunes, which is one of the natural conditions that has been affecting the life, tourism and occupations of the coastline.

However,There are both problems with human activities effecting dune, and dune itself affecting human activities. The human activities that effect dunes are construction sites, vehicle accesses, unplanned infrastructure, and tourism. Tourism and massive human occupations is one of the main reasons that cause damages to sand dunes. On the other hand, the problem of the dune itself create for human are, for example, dune being the separation between the urban development and the sea front, so, to access the sea, you have to get pass these natural “obstacles”. constructions on this unstable ground also become challenging, plus there are:hole and cliffs, steep hills, crowded vegetations and trees, and the instantly growing and changing of sand.

Some of the solutions that have been made to preserve these dune sites are board walks, beach accesses, and sometimes the closure of dune sites to permanently stop the destructions. Although the solutions seems to not be efficient enough.

Which is why I want to solve the problem to give both benefits to human activities and reduce the destruction of dune sites.

For my PROPOSAL: I design a system on sand dune that people can both occupy on and access from the beachfront to the inland area without ruining or destruct the dune site, a structure that could be adapt, move or change constantly with the dynamic dune surface. Where I need to consider: 1. the structure that could adapt with the growing of dunes, 2. stable structural surfaces that people can occupy on, and 3. since I intend to design a system that could be used on any dune site, and therefore it should be able to accommodate with different scales of sites, and as well as a variety of programs.

see High Resolution PDF 

The specific site that I chose as a test site for this adaptable system, is a site down Cadiz, in the area of what they called “Urban Novo Sancti Petri”, where this area has a series of 4-5 stars hotels lying along the beachfront. I chose the coastal site of the Hotel called “Iberostar Andalusia Playa”. It has a typical characteristic of having dunes more than a hundred meter wide separating the hotel from the beachfront.

From the plans, these are the transformations of how the layouts are created. Starting from marking the flat dunes area, these are the areas that my structures could be build on, because areas with flat dunes have less vegetations, so the structure will not be ruining the plants as much. Then how the combination of line created a connecting systems.

I first put the public toilet and bathroom on a linear line close to the beach front.Then a sunbath area also near the beach front for people to get the most sun.Thirdly, a simple beachside restaurant could be a part of the site as well.Lastly, in this specific site, there are this developed dune areas with trees, where i decided to design benches and sitting areas for it to become leisure areas with fragments of natural shadings from the existing trees.

see High Resolution PDF 

Here are the elements that are designed to fulfills my proposals:

the grounding strategy: This is the main element of my proposal, where it consists of a device and floor, where the device is consist of the bevel gears, which is the key to manually lift up the floor while adding more screws to the joint, and even different angles of screws when the ground condition is more steep. With additional elements like universal joints, tripod legs base and bearing balls to control the stability and movements of the device. While the floor structure is connected with the device to accommodate bending and movements human occupations.

The following designs are some simple designs of facilities that could easily be add-on and taken off on the floor structures around the site.There are the benches and awnings, even the toilets and bathrooms.

see High Resolution PDF 

Here is the Axon, and some renderings of the views after the my designs are on site.

see High Resolution PDF 

In the sections, you can see that my design started to adapt with the growing of sand from year 0 to year 20, how the structure adapt with the movements and growing of dune landscape.

In conclusion, my design do not only create a system of access and adaptable occupations on the sand dune, but also in a way showing and proving that platforms and structure can be build on sand dune without ruining the dunes. In additional, the tripod grounding device also becomes a structure that stabilises the sand dune even more, and rooting with the vegetation roots in the sand dunes as time passes. So, the design is giving both benefits to human occupations and sand dune preservations.

Almadraba Hotel

The fishermen village of Sancti petri in the South of Cadiz once was a lively domestic area with full of accommodation that supports fishermen’s life as a fishery community before it was abandoned in almost 30 years ago.

From the marshy land of salt extraction farm, the peninsula gradually developed to fisherman village. It was once well known as tuna fishing village. Due to the route of tuna migration which pass along this peninsula, fishermen who lived in this area will spend 6 months for tuna fishing in the migrating season with Aldramaba process. The Aldramaba fishing principle usesIt’s a huge net labyrinth sinking under the water as a trap waiting for tuna getting inside last chamber. A complex and labyrinthine net system that sinks more than 30 meters deep for 6 months of the year which only two months are used to catch the tuna, coinciding with the migration period of the tuna from the cold Atlantic Ocean waters to the warmer waters of the Mediterranean Sea. It is funnel-shaped and located on the migratory path of the Bluefin tuna, usually near the coast and then pulled up by hand (La Levantá) so the fish come to the surface where they can be selected according to size and the rest are then returned to the Sea. The process is mostly spent time on assembling and disassembling the net structure.

After the military came to rule that area and forced all inhabitants out. Numbers of the buildings were demolished then the village became fully abandoned. However, several years ago the municipal pressured the military to restore the usage of this village back again. The area was recreated by gradually adding some new functions, for example yacht club, water sport area, while also recover fishing uses that cause some buildings be used once again.

After recreate village, a lot of tourists come to this area for both sightseeing and water sport activities. The part that is mainly used by visitors is the beachfront on the lower part of the peninsula, which is an area of water sport club, and restaurants on the seaside. Some also come to visit this area for Almadraba visit in the fishing season. These are the potential of the site area that can be developed and designed to be the area for tourist attraction.

Accordingly, the architecture design proposal comes up to an idea of Almadraba hotel. It will be temporary architecture built up in the period of Almadraba and provided for visitors who come to see the Almadraba process. The temporary architecture is composed of flexible columns, platforms and net that is aimed for being assembled in the fishing season and disposed at the end of season.

Visitor will access the hotel by taking the boat from fisherman village. The sequence of the space is designed parallel to the route of fish that getting into the trap. From entrance to rest area then getting to the last trap, visitors will see the route of fish through the net floor and La Levanta process at the end of the structure.

Firstly, guests will get to the entrance platform which provide the reception, lobby, and service room, and also can access to the pool from here. Connected to the entrance lobby is room area. 3x3 m. rooms are spread in 2 floors with 4 shared-bathrooms. And the last zone of the hotel is the restaurant area which is the 2 floors area for taking views. Especially, at the end of the hotel provide the deck and terrace for La Levanta observation for the visitors.

                           

"The Wetland Evolution" by Mairin Sirisahawat

"My project is focusing on using abandoned cultivated landscape as an opportunity to purpose new typology of urban development landscape that will combine both urban landscape and cultivated landscape as the way to give advantage to local people"

In the ancient period, Cadiz’s economy was survived by the salt extracting production. By taking advantage of being amphibious condition, people transformed inundated lands to be salt pans operating by changes in water level. Besides using salt for cooking, people were using salt for food preservation, so the demand of salt consumption was really high at the time. Especially in the late 19^th century, there was a boom of salt pan industry in the Cadiz area. More than 10000 ha of marshland had been turned into around 150 salt pans. Afterwards, the salt extraction industry was collapsed by the increasing use of refrigeration, which superseded salting as a way of preserving food. Subsequently, some of the salt pans have been started to transform into fish farming. Few salt pans are in operation today, and the rest salt pans has either transformed into fish farming or polyculture or been left.

Therefore, I categorized Cadiz in three different types of landscapes including urban landscape, natural landscape, and cultivated landscape. And within the cultivated landscape, lands can be categorized into four types as well including salt pan, fish farming, polyculture and abandoned land.

A typical salt pond property (Salina) is formed by a first reservoir pond (Estero) that take the water directly from the sea channel throughout a pond-monk, followed by a labyrinth-shaped evaporation ponds system and finally by the crystallization pond. The water column in these ponds system is progressively lower from 1-1.5 meters in the reservoir to just few centimeters in the crystallization ponds. For fish farming, people transformed saltpan to fish farming by enlarging and putting a net to water gate and deepen reservoir beds for water stagnation for fish hatchery. Moreover, land also can be a combination of saltpan and fish farming by using the first reservoir pond in the salt pans that accounts for almost a third of the total surface as a fish farming combined with the salt extracting process.

The saltpan industry has had a major impact on the bay, but the worst damage to the marshes was caused in the 1970s by reclaiming the abandoned lands for construction, to build houses, factories or tourist complexes. The government was scared to lose these cultivated wetlands so they halted these threats to the environment by legislating the preservation regulation in these areas. However, the fact is that this regulation is not actually working in the way to preserve wetland. People only concern about reclaiming land but they overlook the sediment problem that will always happen when lands have been left without maintenance for a long time. It will get shallower and finally become as a new upland due to the transportation of the sediment from the mouth of the canal.

According to the rate of the population in Cadiz between 1950 and 2001, it suggests that the number of the population is going to be increasing every year as Cadiz is well known as one of the good places where most Spanish beach lovers choose to spend time around. Moreover, many retirement homes were settled around the Cadiz and it has tendency to be increased in the future.

Therefore, instead of leaving these cultivated landscapes, I can purpose the new type of architecture that will take advantage of these abandoned lands as the opportunity to create the new type of urban development landscape that would allow people to live together with nature without reclaiming land.

As this new architecture type can be settled in any cultivated area in Cadiz, this site was selected as the example or proves of concept that people can actually live on this type of landscape. The site is in the middle part between natural landscape and urban landscape so it has the potential to be invaded by people in the future. Moreover, this cultivated land is not far from the rail where well connected to the other city, the main road connected to the neighborhood city and the canal connected between the Cadiz bay and beaches so that it has good connection to the public transportation.

'

For my design proposal, the structure has 3 main components including public area, semi-public facilities area and residential area. And the structure is mainly divided into 2 part indicating by different colors are moving part and fixed part. These have been categorised based on the structure program inside the space.

For the moving part, I’ve created the buoyancy column to mainly support the public and semi-public part so that the structure will move according to the tidal change and it will also can help to support weight to reduce providing serious foundation and the program that will lay on top of this kind structure will be the programs that do not have to deal with the permanent structure. On the other hand, the fixed structure will be for the programs such as water supply that need to be always fixed.

The ground has been manipulated in order to improve the water transportation inside the area so that the medium and small site of boat can access through the site. For the reservoir depth operation, the reservoir bed in the site will be deeper than the entrance area so that the site will not completed dried when the low tide but only the small size of craft that I have create in front of each unit house for the social connection within the community can be used and the medium size of boat, the tourist boat and transporting staffs boat can not be accessible during this time. There are 7 boat lanes within the site. Only 4 lanes in the middle part will be used as the medium size public boat way as the main circulation for transporting both tourist and staffs reserved for community people. And the rest two will be for individual boat and small size of boat that used to transport staff to individual unit like the mail boat or something like that. And the right one will be for the exit to the outside.

For the public area, the area is on the third floor which is the top part of the structure where connected to both land and water transportation. People can access the area by parking car at the parking lots and then walk through the skywalk to enter the site or people can take the boat that will be accessible only when the high tide period. And the activities inside the space can be freely adjustable by any people. For example, it can be market or concert hall where people from many places will spend time together.

For the semi-public facilities area, this area takes place both second floor and ground floor reserved for only community people. For the second floor part, this part can be entered from the two main entrances from the public area. It is used as the walkway to enter to the individual living spaces and also connected to the minimart where located next to the facility berth that used to transport all stuffs from outside to the community. For the ground floor part, the area is located beneath the public area. It can be accessible by going down from the community walkway to the adjustable bridge that will occasionally open when the boat pass by and then enter to the space or taking small boat from their individual houses and parking at the end of the space at any time period. The programs inside the area are mostly place where people can exercise and spend time together like restaurant or coffee shop and the other facility programs such as laundry shop.

For the residential area, the area takes place on the ground floor where people choose type of their individual living space. There are 3 types of living space including house for a single person, for a couple and for a family. Each living space will consist of 2 main parts including the fixed part and the moving part. The programs inside the fixed part are kitchen and toilet where cannot be adjustable because of the water system. And the programs inside the moving part will consist of 2 main types which are the private space for sleeping and working and the common space. For the privacy of the bedroom and working space part has been created by located in the middle of each space to divide each unit and the bed room will move vertically to give the privacy to each unit when the low tide because the public pathway view move as well because it located on top of the column buoy so that these 2 programs with different privacy level needed will always not meet each other during both low tide and high tide. And for the craft in front of each house will be used as the connection from bedroom to the kitchen and toilet and can be easily take off from the structure and used as the craft going to the neighborhood house and to the semi-public facilities area.

Conclusion, so that this new type of architecture will give advantage to both preserved area that people don't have to reclaim the land for the construction and maybe as the opportunities for the land profit for example it can be the new type of tourist attraction to improve the Cadiz’s economy as well.