Aziza Chaouni: How I brought a river, and my city, back to life

62,428 views ・ 2014-08-19

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I would like to share with you today
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a project that has changed how I approach
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and practice architecture:
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the Fez River Rehabilitation Project.
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My hometown of Fez, Morocco,
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boasts one of the largest walled medieval cities in the world,
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called the medina, nestled in a river valley.
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The entire city is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
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Since the 1950s, as the population of the medina grew,
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basic urban infrastructure
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such as green open spaces and sewage
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quickly changed and got highly stressed.
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One of the biggest casualties of the situation
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was the Fez River, which bisects the medina in its middle
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and has been considered for many centuries
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as the city's very soul.
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In fact, one can witness the presence
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of the river's extensive water network
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all throughout the city,
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in places such as private and public fountains.
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Unfortunately, because of the pollution of the river,
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it has been covered little by little
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by concrete slabs since 1952.
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This process of erasure was coupled
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with the destruction of many houses
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along the river banks
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to be able to make machineries
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enter the narrow pedestrian network of the medina.
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Those urban voids quickly became illegal parking
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or trash yards.
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Actually, the state of the river
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before entering the medina is pretty healthy.
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Then pollution takes its toll,
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mainly due to untreated sewage
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and chemical dumping from crafts such as tanning.
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At some point, I couldn't bear
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the desecration of the river,
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such an important part of my city,
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and I decided to take action,
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especially after I heard that the city
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received a grant to divert sewage water
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and to treat it.
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With clean water, suddenly
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the uncovering of the river became possible,
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and with luck and actually a lot of pushing,
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my partner Takako Tajima and I
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were commissioned by the city to work with a team of engineers
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to uncover the river.
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However, we were sneaky,
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and we proposed more:
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to convert riverbanks into pedestrian pathways,
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and then to connect these pathways
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back to the city fabric,
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and finally to convert the urban voids
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along the riverbanks into public spaces
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that are lacking in the Medina of Fez.
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I will show you briefly now
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two of these public spaces.
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The first one is the Rcif Plaza,
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which sits actually right on top of the river,
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which you can see here in dotted lines.
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This plaza used to be a chaotic transportation hub
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that actually compromised the urban integrity
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of the medina, that has the largest
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pedestrian network in the world.
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And right beyond the historic bridge that you can see here,
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right next to the plaza,
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you can see that the river looked like
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a river of trash.
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Instead, what we proposed is to make
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the plaza entirely pedestrian,
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to cover it with recycled leather canopies,
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and to connect it to the banks of the river.
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The second site of intervention
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is also an urban void along the river banks,
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and it used to be an illegal parking,
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and we proposed to transform it
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into the first playground in the medina.
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The playground is constructed using recycled tires
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and also is coupled with a constructed wetland
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that not only cleans the water of the river
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but also retains it when floods occur.
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As the project progressed and received several design awards,
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new stakeholders intervened
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and changed the project goals and design.
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The only way for us to be able to bring
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the main goals of the project ahead
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was for us to do something very unusual
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that usually architects don't do.
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It was for us to take our design ego
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and our sense of authorship
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and put it in the backseat
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and to focus mainly on being activists
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and on trying to coalesce
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all of the agendas of stakeholders
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and focus on the main goals of the project:
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that is, to uncover the river, treat its water,
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and provide public spaces for all.
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We were actually very lucky,
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and many of those goals happened
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or are in the process of happening.
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Like, you can see here in the Rcif Plaza.
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This is how it looked like about six years ago.
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This is how it looks like today.
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It's still under construction,
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but actually it is heavily used
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by the local population.
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And finally, this is how the Rcif Plaza will look like
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when the project is completed.
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This is the river, covered, used as a trash yard.
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Then after many years of work,
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the river with clean water, uncovered.
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And finally, you can see here the river
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when the project will be completed.
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So for sure, the Fez River Rehabilitation
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will keep on changing and adapting
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to the sociopolitical landscape of the city,
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but we strongly believe that by reimagining
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the role and the agency of the architect,
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we have set up the core idea of the project into motion;
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that is, to transform the river from sewage
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to public space for all,
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thereby making sure that the city of Fez
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will remain a living city for its inhabitants
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rather than a mummified heritage.
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Thank you very much.
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(Applause)
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