1. MAPPING THE MULTISPECIES CITY
We were attributed the humid subnetwork, adding our site investigation we created a guild of 7 animals which are the common toad, the dragonfly, the grass snake, the hedgehog, the red squirrel, the butterfly and the pigeon. We were interested in the natural habitat of this animals and how to “recreate” it. We also took interest in their temporality, their territorial radius and finally their relation with us, humans.
Following the natural flow of the river La Sorge. We decided to choose the site of Le complexe scolaire de Pontet in which we can find part of the sorge, totally in the open but canalized. This school compex functions according to a very specific theme, the solar system. Indeed, each building that composes the complex was built at different moments in time and what brings everything together is their names, each and every single one of them is called after a planet of our solar system.
2. DETAILS OF COEXISTENCE
After further research on the rivers of Lausanne, we realized that water quality tends to deteriorate when it flows through the plain. Even though the quality is still acceptable it is low according to the standard and leaves room to a lot of improvement. The water is mostly polluted by an excess of molecules such as phosphate or nitrite that are majorly released by farms and overworked water treatment plants.
Seasonal evolution of our intervention. We can observe that the most variable elements are the water level and the occupation of the site. There are less humans during summer but more animals for example, while during winter the human occupation is very present while most of the animals are either hibernating or they are going through a different life stage as it is the case of the dragonfly.
3. MULTISPECIES VISIONS
The proposal consists in renaturing the near river La Sorge and adding an urban pond as a means to deviate the water of the river to offer the opportunity to improve its quality.
As mentioned before, the complex is composed of buildings named after planets, in this plan we can study more precisely the floor plans of Mercure (left), Jupiter (right) and Saturn (bottom left).
By giving back the floor space to nature, we are consciously limiting the human circulation. To make it still possible we integrated a series of passage-ways/bridges, in addition to that we also liberated a vertical interior corridor into the building on the right, the Jupiter building so that the North to South circulation would remain possible.
The different bridges would be made out of earthy materials such as brick, wood and ceramics. Indeed, our pond system as already a natural filtering system integrated, that is why we are planning on creating it but in addition to its natural qualities we are adding an additional water filter made out of a ceramic board made out of three layers. Two outside layers of clay mixed with sawdust to make it more porous to the water and a third layer in the middle made out of colloidal silver. Then we need some retention walls to create this system of platforms that has integrated holes to offer sheltering to animals such as the hedgehog, the grass snake or the common toad that like to hide underground. As additional sheltering we have the railing composed of a wooden structure that would be then dressed up by a three module brick. We wanted that railing not only to be useful for the local insects but also a playful activity that could be integrated into the school educationally program. Ideally, each student, at some point in their education, would have the opportunity in creating their own small module brick that they would personally hang on the railing. Once their graduation comes, they would have the possibility to take it home with them propagating these insect sheltering throughout the whole city of Lausanne raising the awareness of young people towards the existing smaller types of life.
The different bridges that create a network of circulation inside our pond is also in some way an extension of the more public spaces that exist in the school such as the cafeteria on the right and the administrative building of Mercure on the left that also contains a music/theater room.