Jerusalem + Water: routes rifts – Arch/LARP 700 Studio – Anuradha Mathur / Dilip da Cunha / Ron Louis Gross
Valleys in the Middle East divide and unite, none more than the Levantine Rift Valley extending from the Golan Heights to the Gulf of Aqaba via the Dead Sea. It is a tectonic line that is shearing and pulling apart geologically and culturally even as it gathers a unique ecology. The Kidron Valley, a branch of the Rift Valley, carries the divides and unities of the Rift right up to Jerusalem in exchange for waters that exit Jerusalem for the Dead Sea. The studio will develop design projects in specific places in the Kidron Valley. The valley offers a range of possibilities from the urban setting of Jerusalem, through the disputed wall of the West Bank and Palestinian towns, to the receding edge of the Dead Sea. Projects could be a dwelling, institution, public place, infrastructure or armature that engages in some way the routes and rifts of this terrain.
