LEEAD Consulting entered the recent Taichung Gateway Park International Competition and while their proposal did not win, they have shared their design for our review. Images of their proposal, LiquidScapes, and a brief narrative are after the jump.
Due to their size, large urban parks are affected by the economic growth and decay of the surrounding society. Their ecologic succession reflects the socioeconomic condition of this society over a certain period of time. By being over-designed and over-controlled such parks are often the result of a utopian era; archetypes of the humanistic society of the perfect man. ‘Liquid Scapes’ evades this local reflective condition. Instead, it reflects a global path of a processing society, embracing its local endemic interferences.
Six linear elements and one catalyst are employed for Taichung’s Metropolitan Park in this global path: The rice fields, the swamps, the opportunistic plant, the native plant, the vulnerable local plant species and the sixth and last element is based on the experience of the visitors of the former airport and its inscription on their collective memory.
A combination of aerial paths will reflect the experience of the air travelers from Taichung to the rest of the world. These aerial paths will be the only fully organized element of the park. It will permit the visitors to ‘land’ at certain areas of the park, observe the underside developing nature, interact with public art and get closer to their infantine dreams, such as a tree house, and then finally ‘depart’.
The catalyst element is the volume of Water which will be pumped from the Gangwei River and then stored and cleaned by a Water Treatment Facility. The water’s catalytic capacity will create an ecological complexity that will fuse the five ‘green elements’ previously mentioned, into a blended ecosystem over time, whilst being accompanied by a series of walkways and bicycle paths that will lead the visitors to the park’s cultural, sport, educational and recreational facilities. ‘Liquid Scapes’ is energetically autonomous, it cleans part of the Gangwei River’s polluted water and it protects from natural disasters that could impact this specific area of Taiwan. In conclusion, it is a sustainable, naturally driven ecosystem that reflects the global metropolitan character of a local Formosan Park.
