MVRDV wins competition to design Hoowave Water Factory
03/01/2023.
[Huwei] Taiwan
metalocus, ANDRÉS BLANCO
metalocus, ANDRÉS BLANCO
Aerial Anqingzhen wetland, rendering. Hoowave Water Factory by MVRDV.
Project description by MVRDV
An inland town of around 70,000 people located on the Beigang River, Huwei developed in the early 19th century around its sugar factory. While the sugar factory still operates, a connected alcohol factory was closed in the 1970s, becoming overgrown with tropical vegetation. Today the factory grounds, along with a dike built to protect the town from the river’s floods, form a significant barrier between Huwei and the Beigang River. The town also suffers from water pollution resulting from its urban and agricultural growth and is unprepared for the more extreme floods and droughts that will come as a result of climate change.
The design focuses on five goals: the new Huwei water system will be resilient, ecological, connected, cultural, and – given that completion is expected as early as 2026 – feasible. It proposes the addition of a series of localised, naturally cleaned water buffers throughout the city, with the majority placed on larger, publicly owned properties such as schools to streamline their implementation. It also aims to purify and naturalise the Anqingzhen Channel, an irrigation canal running through (and in places, beneath) the town that has come to serve as a polluted and smelly wastewater drain. The cleaned and naturalised canal provides the opportunity to open the disused portions of the factory, creating a park space in the heart of the town. By doing so, the Anqingzhen Channel can return to its former status as an important focus for leisure activities.
“By combining aquatic interventions with mobility and cultural attractions, we open the embankments of the river and canal to the town. Water buffers reduce runoff and help to increase biodiversity and to keep up with climate changes. Our design offers accessibility to riparian leisure spaces and cultural places, generating a more meaningful connection between people and nature… a wonderful resilience.”
Winy Maas, MVRDV founding partner.
Transforming the dike to the south of the town’s core into an accessible urban space, the design creates connections to the waterside, opening up the area between the river and the dike for further uses such as viewing platforms and sports fields. The uses in this area, now called Beigang River Park, are carefully considered along multiple criteria: split into multiple sections, they synergise with the town districts on the other side of the dike, while also taking into account the expected frequency of floods at various distances from the river. Three new cycle routes are also added that use the now-accessible dike as their spine: one 2.7-kilometre loop around the boundary of the sugar factory; one 6.4-kilometre loop along the dike and back along the riverbank; and one 8.4-kilometre loop that connects the heart of the town to the Pinghe Flood Detention Pond in the east.
In addition to the Beigang River Park, the plan elaborates on two more zones of specific focus. The proposal for the Anqingzhen Waterland shows how a naturalised Anqingzhen Channel can become part of a forested park in the disused zones of the Sugar Factory premises. Part of the city-wide flood control system designed to retain, purify, and reuse rainwater for leisure and biodiversity, the water levels of the Anqingzhen Channel here will vary according to the seasons, creating small islands for a number of leisure activities. Meanwhile, the Pinghe Lake design proposes that what is currently a flood detention pond can become an ecology hotspot and a destination on the edge of the city for walkers and cyclists.
Hoowave Water Factory gives water quality and health the same priority as culture and economy. Improved infrastructure and healthy ecological systems with integrated cultural amenities will make the river landscape more attractive, linking the city and the natural environment in a way that benefits all.
MVRDV was founded in 1993 by Winy Maas, Jacob van Rijs and Nathalie de Vries in Rotterdam, the Netherlands. The practice engages globally in providing solutions to contemporary architectural and urban issues. A highly collaborative, research-based design method involves clients, stakeholders and experts from a wide range of fields from early on in the creative process. The results are exemplary, outspoken projects, which enable our cities and landscapes to develop towards a better future.
The products of MVRDV’s unique approach to design vary, ranging from buildings of all types and sizes, to urban plans and visions, numerous publications, installations and exhibitions. Built projects include the Netherlands Pavilion for the World EXPO 2000 in Hannover; the Market Hall, a combination of housing and retail in Rotterdam; the Pushed Slab, a sustainable office building in Paris’ first eco-district; Flight Forum, an innovative business park in Eindhoven; the Silodam Housing complex in Amsterdam; the Matsudai Cultural Centre in Japan; the Unterföhring office campus near Munich; the Lloyd Hotel in Amsterdam; the Ypenburg housing and urban plan in The Hague; the Didden Village rooftop housing extension in Rotterdam; the music centre De Effenaar in Eindhoven; the Gyre boutique shopping center in Tokyo; a public library in Spijkenisse; an international bank headquarters in Oslo, Norway; and the iconic Mirador and Celosia housing in Madrid.
Current projects include a variety of housing projects in the Netherlands, France, China, India, and other countries; a community centre in Copenhagen and a cultural complex in Roskilde, Denmark, a public art depot in Rotterdam, the transformation of a mixed use building in central Paris, an office complex in Shanghai, and a commercial centre in Beijing, and the renovation of an office building in Hong Kong. MVRDV is also working on large scale urban masterplans in Bordeaux and Caen, France and the masterplan for an eco-city in Logroño, Spain. Larger scale visions for the future of greater Paris, greater Oslo, and the doubling in size of the Dutch new town Almere are also in development.
MVRDV first published a manifesto of its work and ideas in FARMAX (1998), followed by MetaCity/Datatown (1999), Costa Iberica (2000), Regionmaker (2002), 5 Minutes City (2003), KM3 (2005), Spacefighter (2007) and Skycar City (2007), and more recently The Vertical Village (with The Why Factory, 2012) and the firm’s first monograph of built works MVRDV Buildings (2013). MVRDV deals with issues ranging from global sustainability in large scale studies such as Pig City, to small, pragmatic architectural solutions for devastated areas such as New Orleans.
The work of MVRDV is exhibited and published worldwide and has received numerous international awards. One hundred architects, designers and urbanists develop projects in a multi-disciplinary, collaborative design process which involves rigorous technical and creative investigation. MVRDV works with BIM and has official in-house BREEAM and LEED assessors.
Together with Delft University of Technology, MVRDV runs The Why Factory, an independent think tank and research institute providing an agenda for architecture and urbanism by envisioning the city of the future.