Riverside Passage

Description

The site for the Riverside Passage is previously used as a coal-handling wharf for shipping raw materials to produce gas. An existing 90-meters-long and 4-meters-high wall within the site was originally built to prevent coal from falling into the gap between the high dock and the flooding wall. Today, its purpose has lost and its existence is silent and solitary.Along the long concrete wall, dust and earth accumulated and plant seed from nowhere began to sprout and grew into large trees, constituting a unique scenery indispensable from the long wall.The Riverside Passage uses the long and solid concrete wall as the foundation for future construction. It would be a base and a podium that has foundational meaning for a ramp across the gap between the flooding wall and the wharf, the uncultivated trees, an elevated corridor, a pavilion for seating would be attached to the solid wall. A one-side sloped roof effectively defines the space on the inside and the outside of the wall. On the side between the wharf and the bank, there is a garden with a sense of desertion as well as a grounded corridor with eaves. On the other side, there is an elevated high corridor facing the river with the wall receded behind it. The corridor is lowered on one side and lifted on the other indicating a difference in the scale of seeing as well as of distance. The coal-handling wharf whose function has long gone is now polished and used as a roller-skating playground. As such, the ground, the wall, and the intervening structure form a new entity, where people could stay or walk past. A place for an everyday flaneur.(Description provided by the architects)