See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/275169614

River.Space.Design. Planning Strategies, Methods and Projects for Urban

Rivers

Article in Journal of Landscape Architecture · November 2013

DOI: 10.1080/18626033.2013.864134

CITATION READS

1 6,992

1 author:

Jorg Sieweke
Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU)
29 PUBLICATIONS 47 CITATIONS

SEE PROFILE

All content following this page was uploaded by Jorg Sieweke on 24 April 2016.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

This article was downloaded by: [University of Virginia, Charlottesville]
On: 26 July 2015, At: 03:05
Publisher: Routledge
Informa Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: 5 Howick Place,
London, SW1P 1WG

Journal of Landscape Architecture

Publication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:
http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rjla20

River.Space.Design. Planning Strategies, Methods and

Projects for Urban Rivers
a
Jörg Sieweke
a
ParadoXcity, University of Virginia
Published online: 29 Nov 2013.

To cite this article: Jörg Sieweke (2013) River.Space.Design. Planning Strategies, Methods and Projects for Urban Rivers, Journal
of Landscape Architecture, 8:2, 84-85, DOI: 10.1080/18626033.2013.864134

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/18626033.2013.864134

PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE

Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the “Content”) contained in the
publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make no representations
or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose of the Content. Any
opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors, and are not the
views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be relied upon and should be
independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shall not be liable for any losses,
actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and other liabilities whatsoever or howsoever
caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to or arising out of the use of the Content.

This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematic
reproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in any form to anyone
is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/
terms-and-conditions
 B OO K Rev i ew s
River.
Space.
River. Space. Design.
Design.
Planning Strategies,
Methods and Projects
for Urban Rivers
Martin Prominski
Antje Stokman
Susanne Zeller
Daniel Stimberg
Hinnerk Voermanek
Downloaded by [University of Virginia, Charlottesville] at 03:05 26 July 2015
Martin Prominski, Antje Stokman,
Daniel Stimberg, Hinnerk Voermanek,
Susanne Zeller
River.Space.Design.
Planning Strategies, Methods
and Projects for Urban Rivers
Berlin: Birkhäuser 2012
ISBN 978 3 0346 1173 2
295 pp., 826 colour illustrations, maps,
and graphics
€ 79,95
Review by Jörg Sieweke
ParadoXcity, University of Virginia
During the course of modernization and urbaniza-
tion, rivers have been thoroughly engineered to
provide particular services and functions, but as
an unintended consequence they have been engi-
neered out of our daily perception and experience.
The former lifelines of a multitude of pre-modern
urban practices, rivers have been tamed, subdued,
and marginalized into objects. As projects, most
rivers have been managed to serve singular objec-
tives such as dredging in favour of navigation or
discharge provisions in respect of flood-protection
mandates. While experiencing the limits of control
during the 2013 European river floods one can
identify a design opportunity to cope with future
flooding. In this respect the publication River.
Space.Design. appears at a critical moment within
a larger paradigm shift that reconsiders our rela-
tionship to natural systems, their innate dynamics
and animate qualities. Will this book be the miss-
ing manual that guides the redesign of our rivers
in response to more frequent flood events?
84 Journal of Landscape Architecture / theme issue autumn 2013
River.Space.Design. offers design strategies that
balance flood protection with stream ecology
and the amenities of public space. With this aim,
it combines the qualities of a textbook with a
catalogue of relevant projects and a design toolkit.
The first volume contains strategies for riverside
design, extrapolated by the analysis of successful
European projects, and is divided into two chap-
ters: Fundamentals and The Design Catalogue.
In Fundamentals, the authors explain the basic
hydrological principles by which each river can
be understood as an interplay of dynamics and
morphology. The hydrologic cycle, parameters
of slope, and meanders are introduced effectively
with the help of didactic diagrams. Based on this
foundational understanding of river dynam-
ics, the authors identify the critical constraints
of ‘process limits’ as a general method to frame a
set of design strategies that comprise the second
chapter. The tools and measures are distilled form
chapter three’s best-practice case studies, The
Project Catalogue. This second volume consists of
forty-five case studies, each documented through
photographs, plans, and diagrams illustrating the
strategies to design public spaces along the river
in relation to the low or high river stages. The
two volumes are joined in a hardcover binding
intended to be used simultaneously, as each design
concept refers to specific case studies and vice versa.
However in actual use, the two volumes follow an
entropic impulse to separate.
River
The book expands and qualifies the emerging
concept of ‘collaborating with nature’ rather than
imposing control and order over natural dynamics,
which we begin to question as the past predomi-
nated strategy. Instead of funnelling water swiftly
through channels, river design is now about
retaining and slowing water to allow time for
infiltration and expand the period of runoff time.
Although this ‘sponge’ strategy has been conven-
tional wisdom of the ecological imperative_for
example, in Germany since the 1970s_it did not
gain traction until the paradigm of acceleration
met its systemic limits apparent in floods events
around the world.
The full scope of designing river spaces, as the
authors suggest, requires balancing the demands
of ecology, flood protection, navigation, and its
amenities within the public sphere, reconciling all
facets into a holistic perspective. Redesign of urban
waterfronts gained new attention in Europe begin-
ning with the 1990s, when regional redevelopment
plans were put forward to promote the revitaliza-
tion of European post-industrial regions, such
as the International Building Exhibition (IBA) at
Emscher Park for the Ruhr District, or Bilbao’s Ría
2010. In fact the ‘Bilbao Effect’, often attributed to
Gehry’s iconic Guggenheim Museum, can only be
appreciated in the larger context of urban stream
revitalization efforts in the Bilbao region.
Space
Questioning past conventions of waterfront
design by proposing an alternative perspective, the
authors deliberately challenge the traditional ap-
proach to river frontage and suggest the river as a
focal space to be reconciled with urban space. Start-
ing from the assumption that urban rivers are no
longer to be reduced to passive backdrop_as was
the case, for instance, with projects developed in
the 1980s for the London Docklands, which seemed
to focus on the water’s visual quality as if it was a
reflecting pool for real estate_River.Space.Design.
demonstrates that river dynamics can actively
engage public spaces and the urban morphology
in calibrated ways. The extensive catalogue, pre-
sented in the second volume, documents relevant
European projects that blend river management
with public amenities and offers examples for
rethinking many urban river spaces on the conti-
nent and beyond.
Design
It is from a comparative analysis of these projects
that the book derives its most original contribu-
tion, The Design Catalogue, which contains design
tools and strategies based on a typological clas-
sification system and on the concept of ‘process
spaces’. The case studies are synthesized into rigor-
ous conceptual categories, and are deconstructed
by interpretative diagrams that analyze each case
study in its design principles and components.
Process spaces provide a classification relative to
river bank types; they reach from vertical embank-
ments to dynamic river landscapes allowing for
‘morphodynamic’ expressions. Design strategies
group projects according to their design tools
and measures from tolerating to resistant. This
analytic retroactive conceptualization allows for
the transfer and application of a strategy derived
from a successful project. This ‘reverse engineer-
ing’ from case studies to design principles, from
practice to concept, represents a particular type of
knowledge production rooted in the design profes-
sions. By means of abstraction, the authors reverse
synthetic design thinking and make implicit con-
 cepts accessible in a matrix of process spaces and
design strategies for transference and application.
Process space
The book categorizes process spaces ranging from
strangely familiar hard-edged embankments
to dynamic river spaces that allow room for the
river’s morphodynamic self-expression. What is
driving the current attention on process space of
urban rivers? How can the emphasis on ‘change’
and ‘dynamics’ that has been a lingering interest
in the discipline of landscape architecture since
the early 1990s be qualified as an instructive
principle? For one, a remarkable interest in
Downloaded by [University of Virginia, Charlottesville] at 03:05 26 July 2015
observing natural processes in the urban context
is witnessed. A collective human desire lies in
observing the vivid nature of a river allowing us
to literally reflect and contemplate the conditions
of our own nature. Process space may permit
everyday aesthetic and conscious experience of a
river that constantly changes in character and ap-
pearance. The river’s regimes regarding sediment
and nutrient flows are characterized by continu-
ous fluctuations. The river’s order is not to be
defined by homeostasis, but by homeorhesis. The
river’s change and dynamic become formative in
‘preserving its flow’. Naveh’s ecosystem definition,
far from equilibrium, is based on principles of
self-organization and seems to materialize with
a lag time of four decades. It may be indicative of
how we begin to conceive and manage our rivers
differently today.
Second, we come to acknowledge the mag-
nitude of unintended ‘side effects’ that surface
as late consequences of neglect, denial, and ar-
rogance, of not recognizing these very ecological
principles. The formerly misread and neglected
externalities of sediment, nutrient, or salinity
regimes are moving to the foreground as they
begin to impact systems in their economic and
functional entirety. The former unaccounted and
non-represented implications rise to matters of
concern and demand to be recognized as projects
at last. In this context it appears critical to
conceive the process spaces not in narrow, but in
most inclusive ways to hopefully capture former
excluded entities.
Both recent acknowledgements require a more
holistic paradigm that accounts for managing
rivers for the benefit of all constituents. Therefore
we find ourselves refocusing our actions towards a
layered system that asks to transgress definitions
of the object, site, and typological approach. This
agenda must go well beyond the oddly technocrat-
View publication stats
ic term of ‘multifunctional landscapes’ referenced
in the book and does not do justice to the authors’
ambitions. It appears to be a shadow of a reductive
and mechanistic landscape concept we hoped to
have surpassed since every landscape is carrying
multiple dimension be it identity, memory, or
atmosphere.
Typology versus topology
The site focus on process space helps designers and
clients to articulate their needs and preferences in
being able to point at identifiable and transferable
types. Although the authors rightfully reject pre-
senting the inventory of case studies and the de-
sign strategies extrapolated from them to function
as a catalogue of designed objects for ‘off-the-shelf
solutions’_this temptation continues to loom be-
tween the pages. The book’s design catalogue can
be understood in the tradition of Pattern Language
(Alexander 1984), an attempt to establish a canon
of universally applicable architectural typolo-
gies. This leaves us with a word of caution about
potentially uncritical application of the certainly
admirable case studies.
Students and professionals need to be mindful
of how to apply the matrix of design tools and
strategies the book offers to a river that must be
recognized as a topology rather than a typology.
Each delineation of a river process space needs to
be understood in its systemic topology, includ-
ing, for example, its sediment regimes. The term
regime, well established in hydrology, refers to a
feedback loop that relates any intervention back
into its system of subprocesses, as called out in
Fundamentals. Local design interventions in any
particular process space will most likely affect
the river’s hydrology at length downstream and
upstream exceeding the conceived process limits.
Changes in slope or profile will impact bank and
sole erosion elsewhere. Precisely these unantici-
pated and unaccounted externalities of any given
project are critical since they will return as side
effects and remind us of conceived project bounda-
ries falling short. The book remains ambivalent
in addressing the subprocesses in the chapter
Fundamentals, but does not account for them in
The Design Catalogue. Failing to respect the com-
prehensive dynamics beyond the limits of the site
of interventions is the root of the shortcomings of
many projects we inherit as maladaptations today.
You won’t step into the same river twice!
The authors consciously challenge the dilemma of
risk and opportunity in making design interven-
Journal of Landscape Architecture / theme issue autumn 2013
tions applicable and transferable to different
contexts. As with every powerful tool, the book
does require a self-conscious designer who has
internalized the contents of the first chapter,
Fundamentals, to carefully apply the design ideas
and strategies presented in the second chapter
to any project. Well aware of the implied risk of
the Project Catalogue separating itself and being
uncritically transferred elsewhere, the authors
insist that applying a tool or measure requires an
interdisciplinary team of designers, engineers, and
hydrologists for each particular site. It does require
a reflective practitioner (Schön 1983) to design river
spaces that can withstand the test of time while
accounting for the full range of indeterminate
dynamics, riverine as well as urban. The book
refers to the task of designing rivers as an exciting
challenge: how to understand design, not as a
finite formal imposition, but as an ongoing
staging of uncertainties.
Assuming the thinking represented in the
two volumes will remain bound as one, this may
be the most comprehensive book on designing
rivers available. If anything the book is, perhaps,
compromised by its own didactic ambition that
implies we were capable of imposing our will on
a river. Ultimately, the river will transgress any
delineation imposed on it _ therein lays its beauty.
REFERENCES
Alexander, C. (1979), The Timeless Way of Building
(New York: Oxford University Press).
Naveh, Z. and Lieberman, A. S. (1979), Landscape Ecology:
Theory and Application (New York: Springer).
Schön, D. (1983), The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals
Think In Action (New York: Basic Books).
85