Yinan Liu

Project description

Interpretation of project background

The project is dedicated to exploring the self-recovery mechanism of nature, transforming abandoned industrial areas in a low-cost and low-intervention way, amplifying the time value of industrial landscape heritage, integrating the whole site and its surrounding environment into the entire urban green space system, and realizing the sustainable development of culture and environment. Meanwhile, the dereliction is itself a problem for urban development on the Clyde. A large amount of vacant land limits its vitality, revealing the lack of urban green spaces. Moreover, urban hard landscape leads to habitat fragmentation, lack of connection between human and site, non-human and site.

Design opportunities

The connection between wildlife and place Large areas of hard land, such as roads and concrete pavements, cut wildlife habitats into pieces, posing a threat to wildlife as they migrate, disperse and forage. Grasslands, woodlands, and rivers are the main habitats for wildlife in urban areas. The lack of connection to these three habitats is threatening wildlife populations and entire ecosystems. Connectivity between people and place Clyde’s  long and rich history creates a unique sense of place for Glasgow. so it is crucial to make the best use of its industrial heritage. However, the access to the waterfront is limited due to a large amount of vacant land and non-public buildings with rigid edges, resulting in a lack of connection between people and place. Design scope background and potential The specific design scope will be further narrowed down to the Govan dock and Prince Dock. The abandoned lands, with the development of time, are rich in wildlife, but also full of the vicissitudes of shipyard history, there are different types of shipyard abandoned components.

Design strategy

Woodland introduction (Planting restoration)

The city of Glasgow covers 17,730 hectares, of which about 430 hectares is woodland. In general, woodland in Glasgow is distributed in a large number of small spots. The woodland will be introduced to the site because the forest is important in providing a wildlife habitat. In addition, the dynamic system will be explored. The proposed woodland web can strengthen the existing wildness. Moreover, it will be an effective way to attract more animals and people to the site and lay a solid natural and social foundation for the industrial landscape on site.

Shared planting (Planting restoration)

Shared planting is divided into permanent shared fields and relatively temporary planting pools. The main plants are based on the raw materials needed for Scottish-style food. The planting configuration takes into account the seasons, human and non-human needs

Give more life to industrial heritage (Shipyard culture restoration)

The project preserves the industrial elements left over from the original site, respects its core connotation, cuts into the soft landscape, and blends them into the current environment with minimal intervention. By analyzing predecessors' comments on industrial heritage and industrial heritage stories, the unique industrial poetry of Govan Dock and Prince Dock will be captured. At the same time, through the design, the industrial heritage will be endowed with more interactive features, so that the post-industrial heritage can carry on further dialogue with people, animals, plants, and microorganisms.

Recycled material flow (Planting and shipyard culture restoration)

On the site, there are currently a large amount of discarded materials, which is an interesting dialogue between old and new. But there is currently no link between these materials. The project proposes circulating material flows to promote material sustainability and interactivity.

Finally, the landscape transformation will be used to activate each space around it,  to wake up other abandoned spaces on Clyde using these strategies, so that the whole urban system is constantly updated in a virtuous cycle.