1255 | 575 | From the twining between Lago Bullicante (Rome) and Marais Wiels (Brussels) towards a federation of emerging urban wetlands. | Valeria Cirillo + Allan Wei
This proposal will start from the twining between two urban wetlands – Lago Bullicante ex-Snia (Rome) and Marais Wiels (Brussels) – that emerged in 1992 and 2008 in neighbourhood caracterized by social and environmental inequalities. The surprise of their birth, the fragile beauty of the living beings that inhabit them, contrasts with the hopeless ineluctability of metropolitan expansion. Because they are a symbol of resistance, we know that they are not an exception but represent a diffuse condition observable in many cities. In order to enable the research of similar resurgence, we have identified common features – hydrology, urbanity, ferality and conflictual narratives – which led us to three wetlands in Madrid, Bucarest and Tunis, additionnal steps towards a federation of emerging urban wetlands._x000D_
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Hydrology. The water power at work has created a liquid territory – impassable for humans, available for other species – giving birth to threathened habitats in the heart of metropolis. 1. wetlands have emerged as a result of human actions. 2. surface water is linked to a watershed disturbed by metropolitan expansion. Hydrology leads us to examine the catchment area of the water bassin and relates the wetland to a network of ponds and streams._x000D_
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Urbanity. The contradictions between ecological and capitalist dynamics are expressed in the form of social and environmental inequalities. Spatial segregation constitutes common territories for local human communities and populations of non-human species. _x000D_
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Ferality. The ecological dynamics in these marginal wetlands are unplanned and feral. The spontaneous ecological resurgence that takes place there calls for forms of dynamic preservation rather than conservation._x000D_
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Conflictual narratives. Local communities have attached themselves to these territories producing narratives. An important step is the construction of common narratives and esthetics, that inscribes the territory in the local psycho-geography._x000D_
Valeria Cirillo + Allan Wei
Università degli Studi di Roma Tre – Université Libre de Bruxelles
ID Abstract: 575