The Sandpit is a methodology that is used to create a body of knowledge around a challenge from the participants. It is a methodology that is also used in interdisciplinary design workshops to be able to integrate and utilize knowledge of different nature because of the different disciplines. In the two-day ‘Sandpit’, the participants from engineering, urban design and landscape architecture firms are working together in defining the challenges and needs in the five geographical ‘challenges’ that represent different parts of the Dutch (delta) territory in the study. Starting in (first disciplinary) groups to discuss these challenges, the practical experience from professionals in the field is gathered and used to build a preliminary understanding of the design-challenge(s) at hand, and to further define the final research question and design brief.

The first Sandpit day on April 8th 2022 started with the firms presenting their position towards the challenge in the delta and also their motivation to participate in this study. The next round was the disciplinary perspective on the system scale over the 5 challenges, thus the whole delta. Second, third and fourth round were about the definition of the challenges itself. The participants would rotate over the challenges to have conversations and inspirations by different people each round and to build this group body of knowledge.

The conclusions of the day were the assembly of 5 teams, with each an urban, landscape and engineering firm, and division of the challenges over the teams. The collaborative approach was appreciated so much that the participants next to their own challenges were interested in creating a manifesto as a group. This will be done in an iterative approach, translation the position on the challenges to the system scale and bring these together in one manifesto. This is on the agenda for the second sandpit day May 18th.