Geoscience Reference
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education and awareness, and to support also the region's characteristic biodiver-
sity. The income would be clearly visible to Zurich's neighbourhood residents and
visitors, demonstrating the positive local (and global) contribution this Naturpark
would make to world climate. In short, this design is environmentally restorative,
socially constructive and economically viable.
Figures 1.2 and 1.3 capture the character and spirit of the new park. The park
will be phased-in in four stages over 60 years as sections of the environment must
be rehabilitated. Also the whole project will go through regional public referendum.
I foresee the current practice of airport design being abandoned soon, because we
will no longer need kilometres of runway area, as we now have manufactured proto-
types of civic airplanes that take-off (and land) vertically. Consequently, SHAGAL
|
iodaa envision that the whole Zurich airport will shrink around 2080.
Notes
1. SHAGAL
|
iodaa is the official name of the International multidisciplinary collaborative stu-
dio for place-responsive programming, research, criticism, writing, teaching and designing
(under the shrinkage umbrella) while fuses architecture, landscape architecture, urbanism and
the visual arts, founded by Siamak G. Shahneshin and Lui Galati.
2. The terminology
shrinkage
was coined for the design and planning disciplines by Siamak
G. Shahneshin in the early 1990s.
Shrinkage
has been proposed to denominate a widespread
response to planning, in the extended sense of the word.
Shrinkage
is a way of thinking, and sig-
nifies the possibility that humans and other forms of life will flourish on the earth forever. The
shrinkage
concept is pleasingly simple; it's a call to turn the traditional practice of architecture
and planning, policy-making and programming (in an extended sense of the word
planning
,
for instance, environmental design) inside out placing priority on natural systems. Perhaps we
should not think of
shrinkage
as being opposed to growth, rather we can view
shrinkage
as
being a facilitator of growth, a sustainable growth. Why consider Zurich airport
shrinkage
?
Those who are concerned about it often cite alarming figures. For example, we are told that the
USA is losing nearly 400 thousand m
2
of open space to new development each hour, and that
Switzerland is losing farmland and forest at the rate of 400 m
2
per hour. Those numbers are so
terrifying that it is little wonder that loss of open space has become a top issue among many
citizens.
3. “Contradictoriness”, refers to the contradiction that Zurich airport's machinery is located in
a place that used to be a glacial basin and that this was followed by the intervention of man
and the spending of 700 million Euros of public money to replace lost rare vegetation. Several
species have become extinct by being moved from their original location.
4. “Demonstrator's resolutions”, refers to the resolutions or written requests by people who live
near to Zurich airport. These people - the Glattal-Stadt citizens - have organised many demon-
strations and several associations have been set up to fight Zurich airport's plans for expansion
and the problems caused by Zurich airport.
5. The existing runway 14/32 becomes part of a united natural reservoir. Temporal urbanism with
different and various uses such as installations, public art, markets and events characterise
the old runway and mark the backbone of the site. A series of linear elevated paths with low
maintenance make the previously “forbidden” natural reservoir area accessible. They create a
pattern of fields with a variety of plantations and minimum maintenance strategies. These paths
sometimes intersect and cross the existing highlighted ground paths. And the path system along
the runway is made accessible through these new elevated wooden paths.
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