‘Water Memory’, a proposal by Ayrat Khusnutdinov, Zhang Liheng, and Alexey Bychkov for the Rethinking Shanghai competition, focused on a strategic vision to manifest the undeletable importance of Suzhou creek waterfront to Shanghai. Using existing bridges as the main axis of their development and arranging high-rise commercial areas along them, they created a cohesive system that would connect now fragmented past and recent developments where water wouldn’t divide to play a connective role. More images and architects’ description after the break.
As the mother river of the city and a hotbed of its development, the water here would get back the prominence it had in the pre-industrial era when Shanghai experienced the first stage of its booming development, characterized by a very different use of water – it was main source of prosperity, it brought food, wealth and integrity with it. But as the time went by, the further creation of this wealth brought with it environmental degradation and toxicity – this great waterfront turned out to be a residual urban space.
