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DESIGN STATEMENT

BIOPHILIC RIVERFRONT (Reviving Bagmati riverfront)

Mother Nature has always been and eternally will be the superior mysterious architect compared to our human interventions. Coming up to this generation, people have been sincerely trying to leave their mark on this earth with their inventions or ideas. Yes, these magnificent inventions/ discoveries have led us to where we are now with increase in quality of life. However, one of the inventions, airplane that helps us to connect and travel faster than ever has also played a role in the faster distribution of pandemic condition of 2020. The same design that makes our life easier is also making our life miserable. Since our intelligence tries to dissect things to its fundamentals to make a categorization for rational understanding of the existence, forgetting that the universe has no obligation to make sense of itself. Thus, our proposed design concept does not try to impact on nature but reflects the nature itself. The idea is not to

make an effort to design something rather it is to make something instantaneous & effortless like the nature. The concept is inspired from the ancient philosophy of Taoism where Tao simply means “the way”.

It’s the way of not forcing action but going with the flow of nature.

The first realization of design problem starts with the context. Our site lies on the Bagmati river bank which is polluted by human intervention and is located at the center of urban area. What this outbreak of pandemic has taught us is that we take nature for granted. Thus, we have come up with a solution that the built-up environment of the landscape on the river bank reflects the organic nature in its original form. This is achieved by following ways:

1. The parking is hidden underneath the landscape hiding all vehicles that locals are tired of seeing every day.

2. The contour is filled and inclined towards the riverbank and the focus of visitors is directed towards the roaring river and the existing scenario instead of the boring buildings and roads.

3. The contour is very random but elegantly formed like the natural landscapes for visualization of minimum human interventions.

4. The Bagmati River is filtered in the eastern side via natural process and the filtered stream is submerged in the purposed pond for vegetation and management of micro climate.

5. The boundary wall is replaced with broken durbar (palace) as a reminiscence of site history.

6. All the shapes, volumes and form of the artificial pond, sitting, cafeteria hidden under the landscape, pathways etc. are intentionally made irregular for organic vibes.

7. Requirements such as cafeteria, amphitheater are seamlessly blended in the context thus helping the flow of contour and breaking monotonous life of Urban visitors.

The experience of visiting the riverbank is hoped to bring peace of mind and remind people about the importance of nature by showing how fragile is our ego created by all these achievements. Overall, the proposed design is very practical in the given context and we hope that it resilient not just architecturally but also in framing people perspective.