A recent landscape design competition sought to rethink the Vatnsmýri airport grounds in Reykjavík, Iceland, by transforming old runways into new urban park space. A shortlisted entry by Lola E. Sheppard and Mason White of the Toronto-based firm Lateral Architecture proposes establishing ‘no-build’ zones or public landscapes. They use the runway to identify three primary axes, otherwise referred to as greenways. The greenways are assigned new functions, which the architects define as Ecology, Recreation, and Production. The Ecology greenway, for instance, “is conceived of as a dot-matrix of cellular ecosystems, organic rooms, landscape surfaces of hard and softscape, gardens and pools.” The Production greenway, has been “treated as a barcode of interdependent production activities, with changing densities of fish farming, greenhouses for fruit, vegetable and flower production, allotment gardens, markets and tree farming.” As for Recreation, well it’s pretty self explanatory.
There is even a network of geothermal pipes that supports the fish farms and greenhouses. Just imagine wandering around at night through these greenways to watching strange plants grow behind glass. There are fewer cars – because entire streets have been blocked off and replaced with microfarms consisting of orchards and small croplands. Perhaps new coastal rivers even cut through the city, engineered by heroic valves tucked away beneath the streets, irrigating various neighborhoods and responding to lunar tides. What used to be highway flyovers are now orange groves, and over there, in the abandoned airport, fields of medicinal flowers now grow. Seems like a good idea to me.
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