Liquid Territories: Configurations of geographic space in the cartographic projections of the Mekong River’s catchment areas

The role played by the Mekong River in the organization of land and people is inextricably linked with a particular spatial category. The concept of the hydrological catchment extends the space of the river far beyond the limits of the river’s perennial waterbodies, to encompass vast areas inhabited by millions of people speaking different...

Integrated coastal flood design strategies: changing paradigm in flood risk management

The relation between the design of the flood protection infrastructure and the design of the urbanscape is the focus of this paper with the question on how these two types of design can consciously affect each other. The text presents the preliminary result of an interdisciplinary research conducted by a team of urban designers and hydraulic...

Resilient Drinking Water Resources

A significant challenge for managers of drinking water infrastructures is to make effective strategic decisions for assets with a long lifetime in an uncertain and changing environment. Water resources, which are part of the drinking water infrastructures, have a special position in this decision making process as they operate at the...

The time threshold: Integration design of architecture and hydraulic infrastructure

With several years’ development, the architecture discipline has reached a bottle neck that the traditional space design cannot follow the society’s improvement and meet with people’s expectation due to lifestyle’s change, there appears many new kinds of intervention based on building technology such as water building, 3D print building and also...

Open to water: A search towards an integral approach to live in areas that are allowed to flood on the southern side of Dordrecht

In the wake of climate change and rising water levels the city of Dordrecht is looking for alternative ways to prepare for coming threats other than keep raising the current dikes. In an exploration a suggestion is made to use the southern side of the island as a buffer for excess water. This research takes that suggestion a step further and...

Sustainable Dala: Showcase of a sustainable water infrastructure

The goal of this project is to develop a design for Dala’s water system that deals with challenges of the township in a sustainable way. Dala is a township of Yangon, Myanmar’s economic centre. It is located directly South of the central business district (CBD), across the Yangon river. The area is now largely underdeveloped, but in 2021 it will...

Shaping the Outside Space through Play Narrative

After the Second World War, play has been used as a tool to reconstruct the image of the city of Amsterdam. Even though nowadays urban areas present similar derelict sites, the causes and needs are different. The negative effects of gentrification and suburbanization require a play related strategy with emphasis on sustainable aspects. As a...

Relocating a city, challenges and opportunities for the transition of the water infrastructure in Kiruna

The city of Kiruna in Northern Sweden has become known for the need to relocate major parts of the city. Current and future mining activities in the world’s largest underground iron ore mine are the cause of land subsidence that requires relocation of substantial parts of the town including its water infrastructure. Figure 1 shows the area...

Flowscapes: Designing infrastructure as landscape

Social, cultural and technological developments of our society are demanding a fundamental review of the planning and design of its landscapes and infrastructures, in particular in relation to environmental issues and sustainability. Transportation, green and water infrastructures are important agents that facilitate processes that shape the...

A critical approach to some new ideas about the Dutch flood risk system

Decisions on measures to improve a flood risk system are in part supported by general ideas about how the system works and should work. After the completion of the Dutch Delta Works around 1990, such new ideas regarding flood risk emerged. Some of these may be appealing at first, but appear debatable after a closer look. In this paper, fourteen...

SimDelta global: Towards a standardised interactive model for water infrastructure development

The research project ‘SimDelta’ builds on novel internet technology to support the development of the Rhine-Meuse delta water infrastructure. It has three goals: education, organisation of research and design studies, and stakeholder polling. A current question is how the SimDelta technology could be made transferable to systems outside Europe,...

Flowscapes: Infrastructure as landscape, landscape as infrastructure. Graduation Lab Landscape Architecture 2012/2013

Flowscapes explores infrastructure as a type of landscape and landscape as a type of infrastructure, and is focused on landscape architectonic design of transportation-, green- and water infrastructures. These landscape infrastructures are considered armatures for urban and rural development. With movement and flows at the core, these landscape...

“SimDelta”: Inquiry into an internet-based interactive model for water infrastructure development in The Netherlands

The Dutch Delta Program is currently developing new government policies for flood protection and fresh water supply. Decision support instruments have to address the program’s technical and political complexity. The water system functions are highly interwoven and would benefit from an integrated approach on a national level, with decisions...

Intertwining uncertainty analysis and decision-making about drinking water infrastructure

Infrastructures, generally designed to have a long service life, are particularly vulnerable to long term changes that can influence their functioning. Therefore it is important that uncertainties are taken into account as much as possible from the beginning of the planning process of infrastructures. This thesis focuses on drinking water...