Design as pathway to inclusive and sustainable urbanizing deltas.
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 large-scale 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. It is therefore time for transformative change. Unfortunately, the current practice of ‘delta-management’ falls short, as it lacks integration and design. However, collective inter-disciplinary knowledge production is required to develop these pathways to get there, 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 put design and design-based research at the heart to deliver these outcomes. We propose to use a situated approach which finding consensus (joint fact finding) and making visions (design-thinking) puts fort, explores and envisions new futures, to evoke and enable change. The main goal of this project is to build knowledge and collective commitment in the delta community to support the shift in paradigm where flood water management (security & safety) is integrated in planning and design, and vice versa in which the role of design and design-based research is revisited and reinvigorated with an interdisciplinary approach. Redesigning Deltas will start the first year with four activities to identify and articulate the main gaps in knowledge. These activities are (i) Joint fact finding, (ii) Design Study, (iii) Methodology/Academic Synthesis, and (iv) International 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.
An initiative led by Delta Urbanism Interdisciplinary Research Programme, Delft University of Technology, the Netherlands.
Website under construction.
For information, please contact us at info@redesigningdeltas.org
Join us for the International Delta Conference: Redesigning Deltas
Design for transformative change: evidence, agency, cross-disciplinary knowledge
16-18 June 2022