A river is a natural flowing watercourse, towards an ocean, sea, or lake. Earth is covered under 300,000 square miles of rivers and streams, usually freshwater.
They are a part of the natural hydrological cycle. Water collects in a river from precipitation through a drainage basin from surface runoff or other sources such as groundwater recharge, springs, and also through the release of stored water in natural ice and snowpacks.
Rivers often have major features in natural landscapes, geological divisions. They are of obvious significance to humans by the history that many civilizations were built around freshwater reverse supplied by rivers and streams.
Even today most major cities are located on banks of rivers and are to date used as a source of water, food, transports, borders, and also as a means of waste management.
This makes us question, what actions do we take to conserve these rich water bodies.
The Rio Grande was once a large flowing river, from where immigrants crossed the border. Although due to the Rio Grande Project of 1952 an irrigation, flood control, and interbasin water transfer project, the river has started running dry. Other than diversions, fast-growing and water-consuming plants, such as water hyacinth and hydrilla, are also leading to reduced flows.
What can be done to reduce the tragedy of this freshwater biodiversity? Or prevent further damage and species declines? How can we re-establish the vital landscape and try to mitigate its impact? How is water a vital element in supporting human existence? How can we find new ways to connect with the biodiversity and river landscape while acknowledging its sensitive state?
Brief: The design challenge is to propose a model public landscape to promote biodiversity and encourage a consciousness towards its protection.
The designed landscape must possess the ability to-
(i) sensitize its visitors to understand how crucial biodiversity is, and
(ii) promote a better sense of consumption and conservation within them.
Design objectives
The participants are expected to design a landscape model in the given site that resonates with the aim of water conservation as a theme. The design objectives are as follows:
Educative: The intervention should aim at educating the collective masses through design.
Celebrate: Introduce river biodiversity as an essential element to the landscape and center.
Acknowledge: Acknowledgement / Awareness of reduced biodiversity and the damage it has caused.
Conservation: Design for conservation through public participation and new methods/techniques.
Awards:-
Prize pool of worth 24000$
The prize pool is dependent on the total number of registrations received. Please check the awards and fees section to learn more about it. There will be a total of 100 (20%) entries that will be shortlisted for the final awards. All the shortlisted entries will be entitled to e-certificates.
Deadline:- 15-02-2022
Entry Fees:- Registration starts: 40.00 USD Free with UNI Membership
