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Landscape infrastructure: Ecology as generative tool

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Pavel Veljanoski
University American College Skopje
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 Факултет за електротехника и
информациски технологии
Скопје

Петта студентска конференција „Енергетска ефикасност и одржлив развој“ – СКЕЕОР 2017

Pavel Veljanoski
Faculty of Architecture, University “Ss.Cyril and Methodius” in Skopje
paveljanoski@outlook.com

LANDSCAPE INFRASTRUCTURE

SUMMARY
The challenges that are facing undeveloped natural areas today are climate changes which
significantly tend to attack the quality and quantity of resources provided in the cultivated natural
environments. We strive to mitigate the phenomenon of climate instability, rather than counter it
strategically.
For several years the Republic of Macedonia has been hit by unprecedented floods
(Pelagonija Valley 2014, Tetovo 2015, Skopje 2016). Climate change and its consequences are the
challenges that we are progressively facing in this area. The subject matter of the project is the
development of a system for distributing and draining excess water in the valley of Pelagonija, but
also creating a local infrastructure that will allow the region to become a useful source of renewable
energy using all the available natural elements and an area of industrial development that does not
negate the original function of the valley as a "granary" of the country. Based on the available
analyzes (geological, hydrological, archeological, agro technical, etc.) and in consultations with
experts and residents of the areas threatened with floods, two risky points were identified that cannot
effectively protect Pelagonija from flooding. After re-reading the environmental strategies and
systems with all their negative aspects, there were proposed infrastructural interventions that integrate
the natural context and will strive to significantly improve modern natural economy.
Strategic revival of nature and geography have the potential to develop into a social and
political agenda of the new era and ecology can be interpreted as a tool in engineering for
development of ecological and geographical areas that are in crisis.
Key words: environment, infrastructure, system, ecology, integration.

8 CHALLENGES OF THE NATURAL LANDSCAPES

Challenges that face untapped natural landscapes today are climate change that significantly
knows how to attack the quality and quantity of resources provided in arable natural environments.
The current infrastructure capacity we trust gives us a false hope of security, even in the case of the
darkest scenario, we blame nature instead of infrastructure. We are increasingly striving to mitigate
this phenomenon of climate instability, rather than strategically oppose it and use it as a usable
resource.
Any kind of artificial intervention in a natural landscape is shown as a disturbance of natural
continuity and is considered with aversion. Intervention in a functionally and culturally degraded
natural landscape of essential state importance should aim to achieve a re-formulation of the approach
to nature through a series of radical social transformations and the re-thinking of the infrastructure
that creates a disharmonic relationship with it. This is achieved by developing a systematic and
structural infrastructure concept based on the fundamental natural principle of circulation and
renewability. The strategic revival of nature and geography has the potential to develop into a social
and political agenda for the modern age.
8.1 Location
The subject of research of this work is the largest basin in the Republic of Macedonia, the
valley of Pelagonija. The basin itself possesses enormous potential that nature itself offers in
accordance with the present natural treasures throughout its surface. The benefit of its exploitation is
noted in every domain of our life. The main pillars of the economy of the Pelagonija planning region
are the production and processing of agricultural products and the exploitation of mineral resources as
well as the production of electricity for the whole country.
The major challenges facing the Pelagonija valley today are the natural disasters, the lack of
resources and their management and the disadvantageous climate changes (floods, droughts, unusual
rainfalls) which are the main reason for the reduced production and the emergence of new,
unfavorable conditions for growing natural crops. Unfavorable conditions are not only result of
climate change, but largely due to inadequate human activities and the country's low capacity to
implement a strategy for the development of such natural landscapes of state importance.
In an analytical review devoted to the flooding process, on the basis of available analyzes
(geological, hydrological, archaeological, agrotechnical, etc.) as well as consultations with experts
and residents of the endangered areas, two critical points were identified in the valley.

Picture 1. Two critical zones during critical flooding in 2015

The first one is in the area where Crna Reka flows into the valley. At that point, Crna Reka
increases its capacity with the waters from the Prilep field and so join forces flow into the central part
of the valley, which belongs to the municipality of Mogila. The second point is the ending of the plain
part where the Crna Reka moves before engaging in the ravine. All the inflowed waters from the
central part of the valley in this area are stationed, and their further rise only increases the water level
and creates a flooding lake from the plane part. These points are the two most affected zones during
critical flooding in 2015 and to this day still have low capacity to effectively protect the region from
flooding.
 The further development of this paper will focus on the analysis and development of an
infrastructure concept for the first critical point, which covers the central territory of the Pelagonija
basin, from the village of Topolcani to the north, to the village of Mogila to the south. In addition to
being the first zone of impact from natural disasters, it is a zone which is a generally densely
populated area with agriculture and agricultural activities at a high level, but at the same time it does
not yet possess hydrographic infrastructure that would regulate the irrigation of large agricultural
areas.
In the process of a meliorative interventions, in this zone at a remarkable level, a modular
scheme/ drainage system has been developed, with dimensions of 2000x300 meters per one field,
regulated and protected by tree carving, which have the function to drain the aquatic arable land, and
additionally they are grouped into larger arable units. Such a system faces a dominant destructive
phenomenon of neglect and destruction, and have only fragments from which the whole system can
be recognized.

Picture 2. Fragmented situation of the dominant structure of a meliorative system

Applying new and upgrading the old natural and artificial layers, the existing, forgotten
structure of a drainage and melioration system, spatially applied to the region of the first critical point,
dates back to the 70's, currently defragmented and useless. Within that system, a channel is identified
that will become the center of the renewed and expanded system. The final intervention has a general,
strategic approach in its proposal and a specific structural product from the analyzed material and
structural archive.
8.2 Integrative axis
Integrativeness, as a key feature of this concept, aims to articulate the negative aspects in a
positive context, to preserve and protect the positive aspects and to adapt them, while in its essential
infrastructural interventions, find an additional program that would respond to regional challenges and
would enrich the multidisciplinary approach to intervention. The first strategic intervention refers to
the concept of restoration of the reclamation scheme spatially applied in this region. Its function is
based on the drainage process and growing of arable land, which brings a bigger economic challenge.

Picture 3. Program distribution in the integrative axis

 The global challenge to tackle natural disasters, which in large measure cause damage
with floods in winter periods in this system, creates conditions for the development of preventive
surface as accumulative depression. It is dimensioned according to the data on the maximum
capacity of flows of Crna Reka obtained from the Hydrometeorological Administration in the
Republic of Macedonia, which is Qmax = 312,00m³/s. The dimensioning provides a condition for the
capacity of this depression to be able to accumulate such a flood wave in an hour, in order to get
the time to mobilize the local population.
Q (flow) = W (volume) / t (time)
W = Q * t = 312 m³ / s * 3600s
W = 1 123 200m³
It is tangentially positioned in relation to the river and connected to it by surface channels, so
in the case of a flood wave or management of the permanent waters of Crna Reka, it will be able to
store the swollen water and prevent flooding of the local context, but also provide water for
continuous irrigation, which is its second use function.

Picture 4. Accumulation and durable reservoir for storm water management

The accumulative depression contains a larger preventive basin and a continuously functional
basin that functions for the irrigation system. From it, an underground pipeline network develops,
which provides to each of the enlarged arable areas several plugs from which they can be irrigated.
This way of water circulation brings these two systems in harmony with natural hydrographic
phenomena, because they use water on the move, without creating oversized accumulation lakes with
a negative impact on local biodiversity. This complex and spatial infrastructural concept also follows
the communication infrastructure, which in this case does not aim to urbanize this region, because it
retains its primitive form in the form of an agricultural road.
8.3 Structural treatment
Groups of structural entities connected in a structural composition are a general concept in
designing new interventions and a draft concept from which legislation/building law can be developed
in protected natural areas. A single element elaborates more constructive and functional scenarios that
examine its justification in a concrete strategy with limiting construction features.
By using one and only element, in this case, the reinforced concrete pillar with dimensions
10x10cm in a characteristic section with a height of 3 meters, used in different roles (pillar, beam,
wall) of the only constructive system, provides a functional and flexible modular space, which is
adapted to more functional units in the technical development of this paper.

Picture 5. Structural element and structural unit

Such a constructive composition, with all its restructuring capacities, creates enough sheltered
space in which more types of individual or group activity can be performed. It has been tried
in several variations in the technical documentation of this paper, which refer to predefined zones of
intervention in the planned generating axis.
8.4 Generative axis
In further elaboration, there is a need of emergence of structures, contents that will create a
space in which central institutions would operate to manage and develop the planned infrastructure
and all existing processes in the surrounding context. However, this "settlement" could not grow into
a process of urbanization in an extremely sensitive area, threatened by such a phenomenon.

Picture 6. Program distribution in the generative axis

One of the positions that directly relates to the culturally integrative principle is an
intervention in the scope of the archaeological site. Its phenomenon is due to the essential need for a
spatial module that will provide conditions for direct research activity, a laboratory for the
examination of inventions, a workshop for additional archeological activities and space for their
exposure.
The second structural grouping is positioned normally on the dominant line intervention,
along the course of an existing drainage channel. In the immediate vicinity of the accumulation basin,
it creates a space for the administrative and socio-cultural center that plays a dual role in the
infrastructure system itself. The administrative role is to provide space for state institutions that would
manage the water and land reclamation systems in this region. The socio-cultural center has its role in
the existing processing activity in this area and involves people as the main actors in that event. It
creates space for their education, individual and group gatherings, the sale of necessary resources and
a place for general management of their activities, production and sales.
9 CRITICAL REVIEW
The challenge is to apply and renew the applied structural network in relation to the natural
phenomena and needs perceived by the current way of using the landscape. The structure itself would
integrate the whole region into a production unit that, besides its production capacities, will
simultaneously enrich the context with a preventive phenomenon that builds on the circular
functioning of natural processes and thus stimulates the functional capacity of the landscape. For this
purpose, a project with a geographical and economic orientation presenting the concept for modern
infrastructure has being developed offering flexibility and accessibility, based on the laws of nature,
humanism and monumentality. The ecological logic of self-preservation is a generator of the new
spatial shaping! Nature is part of all human activities. Do we help by neglecting it?

Picture 7. From linear intervention to structural development of the region

10 GRATITUDE
I use this occasion to thank for the support and the professional help during the preparation of
this paper to my mentor, Prof. Mitko Hadzi Pulja, Ph.D for immensely professional cooperation and
support for the preparation of this master's thesis. I also express my gratitude to Haris Piplas, PhD
Candidate and Course Coordinator for Sustainable/Ecological Urbanism at ETH Zurich, Goce
Naumov, Ph.D, founder of “Center for prehistoric research” in Skopje, Prof. Cvetanka
Popovska, Ph.D, professor of Hydrology and Hydraulic structures at Civil engineering Faculty
(UKIM), Mihalo Mihajlovski Master in Mechanical Engineering and employees of The
Center for Development of the Pelagonija planning region (CRPPR) for useful suggestions
during the preparation of this paper and for the correct relationship and professional way of
communication.

11 BIBLIOGRAPHY
[10] Bernard Rudolfsky, „ Architecture without Architects “, University of New Mexico Press, 1987.
[11] Митко Панов, „Некои методолошки елементи во проучувањето на географската средина“,
Институт за географија, Факултет за Природно Математички науки, Скопје, 1969.
[12] Patrick Geddes, „On Landscape Ubanism“, Austin, 2007.
[13] Pierre Belanger, „Landscape Infrastructure: Urbanism beyond engineering“, Wagenigen, 2013.
[14] Миле Бошевски, „ Развојниот пат на водостопанството на Пелагонија“, Битола, 1977.
 Факултет за електротехника и
информациски технологии
Скопје

Зборник на трудови од
Петта студентска конференција „Енергетска ефикасност и одржлив развој“ – СКЕЕОР
23-25 Ноември 2017
Скопје

Студентска конференција Енергетска ефикасност и одржлив развој

http://skeeor.feit.ukim.edu.mk/

Координатор на конференцијата
проф. д-р Маргарита Гиновска

Организатори
Здружение за истражување и промоција на енергетската ефикасност и
одржливиот развој СКЕЕОР, Скопје
ФЕИТ – Факултет за електротехника и информациски технологии
Универзитет Св. Кирил и Методиј – Скопје, Р. Македонија

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