Bjorn Lundquist

This project responds to two critical conditions of the Matanza-Riachuelo river that defines the border between the federal capital of Buenos Aires and its neighboring communities in the south. First, its function as a legal, spatial, infrastructural and social barrier between the two river sides, and secondly, the severe pollution of the water and the river bed caused by industries and squatting communities along its urban stretch.

An extension of the river replaces obsolete industrial land to naturally clean the water through a process of phytoremediation in a river wetland landscape, also serving as a public recreational park space. Within a system of dividing and retaining walls that protect the urban fabric from erosion, and directs the river at large, the river landscape is allowed to develop freely over time according to its own nature.

A proposed strip of mixed-use buildings, based upon the local traditional conventillo courtyard house typology, face old and proposed new streets along the site perimeter, and mark a clear distinction between the orderly urban condition, and the wild landscape of the park. It is systematically pierced by pedestrian accesses leading up to a higher flood proof level, where they extend into the landscape as walkways and bridges, some highlighting the problems of flooding by becoming unaccessible at unusually high water levels.

A main pedestrian path, unaffected by flooding, connect two new plazas with railroad stops on the north and the south side via two programmed nodes in the shape of two building sunken down below water level within retaining walls. The buildings contain outdoor and indoor spaces for sports, performance arts and education, a variety of uses allowed to change over time.

Two new bridges attached to the existing street grid, and a raised reconstruction of the railroad, cross the site and provide a new level of local vehicular connections. A navigation channel with locks allow boats to cross the site, still keeping the negative impact on the water flow and river landscape ecology at a minimum.

The proposal also includes extensions and reconnections of the street grid and block structure of the south side for future redevelopment.