Darakeh River Park:

A Green Lung Connecting Alborz Mountain and Gisha, Tehran

The Oslo School of Architecture and Design (AHO)

Samin Salehi
Supervisor: Kelly Shannon
Spring 2014

The project is about re-thinking Tehran’s watershed and re-using its invisible “Qanat” ruin.
Tehran is located in an arid and semi-arid area and sits on a gradually sloping plain between the Alborz Mountains and the Great Salt Desert. It has an average rainfall of 250 mm/year and a population
of around 12 million.
Geographical reason of air pollution

Anabatic and katabatic wind has a higher speed

along the river-valleys which air, carries dust and
smoke.

Tehran is one of the most polluted cities in the world

due to tremendous amount of cars and its
geographical situation. Due to height differences and
various microclimates. Green areas and water would
help to enhance and refine airflow speeds and help
with the pollution problem.

Contemporary Tehran is a result of fast growth with over three

hundred kilometers of inner city highways, systematically omitted the
topography and erased a thousand-year old urban heritage based
on water management.
Qanat concept

Qanats are constructed as a series of

well-like vertical shafts, connected by
gently sloping tunnels which run at a
slope mountain hills. Qanats tap into
subterranean water in a manner that
efficiently delivers large quantities of
water to the surface without the need
for pumping.
The water drains by gravity, with the
destination lower than the source,
which is typically an upland aquifer.
Qanats allow water to be transported
over long distances in hot dry climates
without the loss water to evaporation.
Before its modernist expansion, Tehran like all other Iranian cities in the desert, was dependent on its adjacent mountainsorf water. Ancient irrigation network, called
the Qanat, tapped water from the aquifer of adjacent foothills creating a linear network between the mountain, city and agricultural plain.

There once existed more than 500 Qanats in Tehran, today few are in operation Current condition of Tehran´s Qanats
Research Question ‘‘how can the ingenious Qanat network of Tehran be requalified and once again
become a component of spatial structuring of the city?”

The Darakeh watershed was chosen as a case study since it has Darakeh River which needs upgrading and at the same time is rich in
Qanats, several of which are still water-fed from the mountains.
1-The first analysis map shows the visible water (natural & 1-Visible Water 2- Invisible Water 3- Cut Watershed 4- Ground Cover
artificial, rivers, lakes and canals). The current system is not

quite successful as there is flood problem (storm water

drainage) in early spring and late autumn.

2-The Darakeh watershed is fascinating since it has an

abundance of invisible water structures under the ground. Its

network of Qanats, which has been forgotten for more than 5

decades, has different conditions nowadays. Some have water

and some don’t. some are mixed with wastewater and some

are not. In the design research 6 different sections were

investigated in different areas of the site, all of which contain

Qanats. This allowed for the identification of problems of

different areas along the Darakeh River and potentials for

revival within the conception of a large park system. Each of

the sections ended up being the crucial points of the proposal.

3-The east-west roads destroyed the healthy functioning of

watersheds and ecologies and brought an increase in flooding.

4-The ground cover layer focused on the existing situation of

the public realm along the River. There exist different

programs, from north to south such as the recreational area of

mountain, a large military area, new mixed-use area of high-

rises, the expensive villas and penthouses, the Milad Hospital

which is the largest specialized and hospital in Iran,

Universities and research center, The Tehran International

Trade and Convention Centre and Milad Tower (435 m-high,

the 6th tallest tower in the world) and Urban Park (Park e

Goftegoo) which consists of 100 kinds of different trees and

plants. There is also a great deal of terrain vague along the

trajectory.
The new Green Lung restructure the watershed
1- A north garden village
across scales.

The proposal rethinks the city through its watershed by

the irrigation of urban corridors, which borrow traces of
the old river and cross the site from the mountains to
the desert. The park creates an ecological network
where nature and urban spaces come together to
restructure the watershed across scales. A 2- A purifying landscape

hybridization of uses positioned in strategic points

relates to water flows and establish new passages
between restrained urban archipelagoes of the
highway-scape and the ruined underground Qanat
system. While the Qanats depend on their current
conditions in terms of having water or being filled use to
3- A productive landscape
transfer or store the water to respond the storm water
problems due to impermeable surfaces and use that
water to irrigate the park. The park is 10,000 m (with
600m of it explicitly designed) long and of various
widths, from 50m to 500m. The river park works with a
number a major programs from north to south: 4- An ornamental landscape

1.a north garden village, 2. a purifying landscape park,

3) a productive landscape, 4) a ornamental landscape,
5) a linking landscape
5- A linking landscape
1) A north garden village:

A north garden village, which preserves the existing

landscape (remain of old Tehran gardens) and natural
river flows; has a recreational use.
2) A purifying landscape park
A purifying landscape park, consisting of a series of wetlands and local plants which clean the river, and
contain run off water and also qanats. The river, which is currently in the canal, is naturalized and transfers
clean water to the third part of the park.
Qanat as a rain collector
The Qanat functions in various manners in different sections of the park to irrigate the green lung and in this part work as a rainwater collection. The Qanats which are beneath of new apartments work
as cisterns. The polluted rain captured by rain collector on the roof and goes to Qanat which retain and transfer the rain water to appearance of Qanat where the water be purified by local plants
wetlands before going to the river.
3) A productive landscape
A productive landscape, with a new park front of 10-15 story apartments with a
common courtyard for urban agriculture and orchards (cherry, apple, mulberry,
persimmon, walnut and etc) on the east side of the river and allotment garden
terraces on the west side. (Ranging between 50-120 square meter)
Qanat drains storm water of flooded highway and irrigate the park
While rain in Tehran falls infrequently, it often manages to cause flooding and to wash pollution into the river and ground water. Every time it rains, billions of gallons of water flow down of streets,
neighborhoods, channels, rivers, and waterways, carrying pollution and waste, flooding intersections, and washing topsoil away.

The use of dried Qanat is to harness that valuable resource, capture it, treat it, and use it in a green and sustainable way that enhances the area. The effort implements storm water quality enhancements to
clean up the water, allowing it to be captured and infiltrated back in the underground aquifers while protecting the impermeable surfaces from flooding.
Qanat cleansing the high way runoff

Through stormwater features like Urban woodland, bioswales, wetlands and from the new parking lot designed beside the rain gardens will be captured, treated and infiltrated back into the
groundwater and also will clean again by wetland created in appearance of the Qanat before going to the river while creating a beautiful landscape that enhances the area.
4) An ornamental landscape
An ornamental landscape, inclusive of, restaurants, cafés, etc. inspired by Persian gardens with ornamental flora and spaces for sitting in the shadow and which serve the hospital and different public
complexes. The plant and flowers are chose according the seasons and microclimate of Tehran such as viola, matthiola, pelargonium, hyacinth, Antirrhinum majus, tulip, dahlia, chrysanthemum, rose,
jasminum, rosa banksiae, honeysuckle, rosa canina. Those flowers by different colors and smells create a different atmosphere in this section of park.
5- Linking Landscape

A linking landscape, which connects the new green to an

existing urban park mostly following the existing path and
filled the empty areas by new greenery to create an
integrated united lung as a filter for the polluted
metropolis and which leads clean water coming from the
mountain to the plain for agriculture
lands in the south.
Urban Woodland Obscures The Infrastructure

The east-west highways cutting through the

watershed have also been forested. In this way,
they are somewhat camouflaged and as well
provide a carbon-sink and mirco-climate, instead of
visual scars cutting through the urban fabric.
This new woodland is a potential for creating
multiple and complementary landscapesituations.

The green obscures the infrastructure and offers

local residents an accessible humid swath of forest,
which is able to absorb the rain run-off from built up
areas and also the highway. It is mostly deciduous
trees like Platanus orientalis, Pine trees, Beech and
etc. Trees were selected using the following
criteria:

-Known pollutant-removing capabilities

-Known to thrive in Tehran
-Conifers and deciduous preferred
-Fast growth rate
 • Conclusion
Conclusion

Reviving the qanats is not nostalgic! The

reappraisal of this ancestral infrastructure
can serve to fertilize public space by
transferring the storm water of highways,
and bringing oxygen to a highly polluted
and fragmented metropolis by literally
irrigating the new park. In turn, the park
creates a new local economy and creates
a densified park front of housing
combined with commercial and social
programs, which addresses the
problemmatic informal settlement along
the Darakeh river.

View from the park to the north- Purifying Landscape