About

Introduction: shared notions

Unsustainable growth (urbanization) and shifting time horizons in delta management increase the urgency of the environmental crisis in deltas. Besides, an opportunity for a ‘reset’ arises because of the near sell-by date current infrastructure systems (mature deltas) and the vast investments planned in the coming decades (emerging deltas). It is essential to identify and understand pathways to a sustainable and inclusive delta in which transformations are likely necessary. Unfortunately, the current practice of ‘delta-management’ falls short, as it lacks integration and design. Collective inter-disciplinary knowledge production is required to develop these (transformation) pathways, and the success of collective knowledge production does require a design-based approach, in which different perspectives are recognized and joint new perspectives are developed. Therefore, we initiated an ambitious, inter-disciplinary and multi-annual project which places design and design-based research at the heart to deliver these outcomes. We propose to use the Delft Approach as a basis on which to build in the process of Redesigning Deltas, in which finding consensus (joint fact finding), making visions, and designing their material, ecological and temporal manifestation in space (design-thinking) help to explore, envision, and project new futures, to evoke and enable change.

Strategy: transformability (persistence – fragments vs. permanence – main structure)
Tactics: flexibility (ability to respond, contingency), continuous learning, adaptability, and innovation (ability to change) and will deliver as concrete outputs pathways to sustainable deltas (national and international context).

Project (1yr)

In a collaboration involving the Delta Urbanism group and various faculties of the TU Delft, the Delta program, Deltares, Resilient Delta, Erasmus University, Wageningen University and PBL, Redesigning Delta will start in the first year with four activities to identify and articulate the main gaps in knowledge. These activities are:

1. Joint fact finding
2. Design Study
3. Academic Synthesis
4. Cross-boundaries Exchange

These four activities feed each other iteratively and will result in defining the contours of an ambitious 5-year scientific program involving education and research aimed at implementation.

Joint Fact finding

Goal: creating a shared scope (perceptions, actions) among the delta community* on dealing with extreme climate scenarios (e.g. 2-3 meter sea level rise, change trends of extreme events, droughts, salinisation), climate adaptation, subsidence, sustainability transitions, housing shortage, agricultural transformation and boundary conditions of the context (what social/economic/ climate scenario?) for current and desired society.
Product: report describing shared scope and state-of-the-art knowledge.
Methods: identification of integrated backbones and fact finding by interview of experts and decision makers, data hackathons and various events.

Design Study

Goal: discovering and investigating new approaches through back- and forecasting of extreme scenarios by multidisciplinary teams.
Product: spatial visions for several areas of the Dutch delta.
Methods: collaboration between Spatial Design (problem seeking, envisioning different spatial interventions (transformative change) for a complex & wicked challenge) and Design in Engineering (problem solving, finding the best solution for a clear and tame problem)

Academic Synthesis

Goal: technical innovation may not be understood as the literal improvement of one technical system but of the improvement of the cooperation between multiple technical systems. This involves a set of methods and approaches that need to be inventorized and improved.
Product: contours of the programme, listing the current available (methodology) knowledge, enhancing the knowledge transfer and uptake, and where necessary knowledge development and setting of new paradigms.
Method: creating a library of state-of-the-art ‘methodologies-instruments’ and seeks for white spots, leading to the following question: are these instruments fit for purpose?

RDD Design Study Exhibited at IABR ‘It’s About Time’

It is about time in Delta Design to create a new Dutch condition. Redesigning Deltas investigates new forms of interdisciplinary design in which urban, landscape and engineering disciplines project a future founded on the natural and spatial qualities of specific ‘moments’ in the Dutch delta system: the port, the sea arms, the polder, the rivers, and the streams. To arrive at a Resilient Delta in 2122 the five teams of the design study delivered a manifest of a new approach how-to live-in harmony with the dynamics of the delta. The five projects each illustrate this manifesto in the merits of the typical location they worked in. The Limburg team (Defacto, Vista and Arcadis) enforced the landscape as a buffer… Read More

De Staart, West 8: IABR–Atelier Dordrecht

The case of De Staart in Dordrecht is used withing RDD as example how – through – design floodrisk management and urban development can be brought together. De Staart is located outside the dikes but due to its industrial function it was raised relatively high. It is besides an industrial area also residential, which is partly on a former poison belt. This creates an ambivalent living environment. On the one hand, it is a district with lots of nature and beautiful areas close by: the Biesbosch and the historic city center. On the other hand, there is the proximity of the industrial area, including a waste incineration (which supplies heat), a WWTP, a chemical factory and a penitentiary. After… Read More

Spatial Framework as a Basis

Adriaan Geuze as studio master and the team of West 8 made the spatial framework for De Staart as a basis for possible future developments. The Framework contains substantive principles, whereby the landscape quality of the area determines the structure. Use was made of the unique position between the Wantij and the Beneden Merwede, and of the transition from urban area to the ecological main structure in the Biesbosch area. Within the spatial framework, an urban exploration was made with which the requested program was examined in mass volume. A total of 1.3 million m² of gross floor area of buildings is needed for 7,000 extra homes, where 14,000 people can find shelter. To preserve the human scale, a… Read More

Design Study Masterclasses

As a part of the Design Study, ReDesigning Deltas organized four masterclasses, to give participants specialist knowledge input for their challenge. Topics included: the Dutch delta, international deltas, delta governance and delta economy. In the Dutch Delta, Deltares-specialists presented the state of the art regarding adaptation pathways, scalability, transport-corridor(s) and climate proof infrastructure, draught, subsidence, flood risk management, but also on the regional challenges of Limburg, Southwestern Delta, mouth of the Rhine-Meuse rivers and Limburg. The Dutch Delta Masterclass informed the societal challenges, that are the point of departure for sustainable spatial transformation envisioned by the design-teams in the Design Study. The societal challenges are organized in environmental (climate and biodiversity) and socio-economic drivers (housing, energy transition and new economy),… Read More

Recife Exchanges Netherlands

16th climate hotspot (IPCC,2014): Recife, first renascence city of the Americas and most vulnerable Brazilian metropolis to Climate Change, faces the threat of being submerged by rising sea levels. Towards an urbanistic reinvention of Recife, the 12 years partnership between Recife and the Netherlands has reflected on visions and strategies to both countries. So, how can we protect the oldest capital in the country, set to celebrate its 500th anniversary in 2037, from becoming definitely flooded? Through Recife Exchanges, this research involved national institutions led by the Federal University of Pernambuco in collaboration with international institutions such as RCE - Ministry of Science Culture and Education of the Netherlands, MIT (USA), Université de Toulouse (France), IHE/Delft - Institute for Water… Read More

About

The main goal of this project is to build the knowledge and collective commitment in the delta community* to support the shift in paradigm where water (security & safety) management is integrated into planning and design and vice versa in which the role of design and design-based research is revisited and strengthened.
The project will evoke systemic change on two levels:
1. Strategy: transformability (persistence – fragments vs. permanence – main structure)
2. Tactics: flexibility (ability to respond, contingency), continuous learning, adaptability, and innovation (ability to change) and will deliver as concrete outputs pathways to sustainable deltas (national and international context).