Transient landscapes: Reframing “disruptor” weather events

In the aftermath of Typhoon Yagi in early September, we have been reflecting more deeply on the interconnectedness of human infrastructure and nature within our city, and beyond the urban realm to larger scale systems in which we are embedded. As we witnessed the typhoon sweep through Viet Nam’s northern region, the impacts of urbanization and development were devastatingly clear: Economic plantations replacing natural forests throughout much of the upland territory, though still considered a "green cover,” provide only shallow roots leading to unstable land that collapsed under heavy rains.  Fragile riverbanks became precarious for the many people settled there, and infrastructure failures continues to have lasting aftershocks weeks later.

Hanoi Ad Hoc is a collective, associated with an architectural practice, dedicated to examining and re-examining the complex urban dynamics between the different elements that make up the Vietnamese capital. For our third thematic project, titled City’s Water (the Red River and Lakes), we shift our attention to water and seek to recover Hanoi’s water as an interconnected, vital force in the city’s evolution.

Hanoi was once a very porous territory defined by the water of the Red River as well as many smaller river branches, lakes, and ponds. Settlement, dyke building and erosion gradually transformed the landscape. This process was accelerated during the colonial period under the French, who filled in many lakes in the Old Quarter for urban development and expansion. Water-based transportation was replaced by roads, and over time, Hanoi became more separated from its water, physically and culturally. Not only has this reduced the permeability and capacity of the city to manage heavy rains, but it has also resulted in degradation and homogenization of Hanoi’s rich landscape heritage. Perhaps the ultimate symbol of flow and flux, water is the subject of continual negotiation between the city and nature.

During Typhoon Yagi, images of flooded streets, rescue boats, and overflowing riverbanks in Hanoi's inner-city districts reminded us of this constant tension, and of water’s potential to shape the future of the city after all. Yet, beyond viewing Yagi as only a disaster, landscape ecologists have also helped us to understand how turbulence reorganizes systems to develop adaptive and responsive structures over the long term (See Forman, R.T.T. and Godron, M. (1986) Landscape Ecology. John Wiley and Sons Ltd., New York.). While bringing damage, a typhoon is also an external force for creating new living environments for living things to evolve and thrive. As the rivers overflowed, the water surface spread and formed passages between different spaces that had long been disconnected. Reactivating these connections at different scales allowed Yagi to breathe fresh life in the rivers and atmosphere, to transport fertile alluvium, diverse species and seeds to new spaces. From an ecological point of view, disturbance is a necessary condition for transformation, for nature to bounce back and enter the city once again.

Bờ Vở - House of Forest is one of our first projects to confront these issues, located in a forgotten land at the Red River’s edge yet in the heart of Hanoi. The landscape of Bờ Vở is constantly changing, and was dramatically transformed after Typhoon Yagi from a domesticated to a wild, organic landscape with new vegetation and new conditions. Though construction had begun of a pavilion building designed as a contemplation place for humans, since the storm the structure has already been taken over by new nonhuman inhabitants. What we approached before as a closed system, we must now understand as an open system in which things are transient and unpredictable.  As the landscape changed, so the nature and programme of the project must also change. The unexpected challenges of the storm have inspired us to explore an alternative design approach in which instability and open-ended processes can be creative catalysts, enriching the project as it adjusts and adapts to future events.

For the Hanoi territory built on the floodplains of the Red River delta, water shapes an ever-shifting riverscape, regular monsoons, periodic typhoons and flooding, and the gradual movement of ground that characterize a fluid landscape.  Facing continued urban growth and storms made more intense by climate change, we are now at a critical crossroads to reconsider how we can work with the dynamic of water and other forces of nature for a more sustainable future.  Through our ad hoc approach, we aim to recover the value of Hanoi’s forgotten water landscape from polluted backwater ponds and canals to the remaining flood retention areas of the Red River. We also aim to uncover the value of the transient landscape, an open system in which change (or disaster) fosters flexibility, resilience, and the possibility of renewal.

Written by Ylan Vo and Trung Mai for Hanoi Ad Hoc

The views in this article are not necessarily those of FES.