Trees and the urban forest are essential cooling devices for adapting cities to urban heat. This chapter explores the potential of these solutions to adapt to climate change while addressing essential considerations and challenges within the urban design domain. Thermal mechanisms through which trees contribute to cooling urban environments are presented, ranging from shade provision and evapotranspiration at the scale of the tree to the scale of a tree ensemble, area, and urban forest network. Principles for careful green space planning and strategically placing trees are introduced with a specific focus on the spatial factors that optimize their cooling effects and maximize their benefits. Additionally, this chapter highlights the value of onsite measurements in assessing the magnitude of trees’ cooling potential. Data collection methods are introduced to evaluate the impact of trees and other nature-based interventions on temperature, humidity, and wind patterns. Finally, this chapter discusses the complex nature of urban environments, related limitations and opportunities for enlarging, maintaining and integrating green areas into densely built areas. ... Read more

Een drieluik geproduceerd als 'praatplaat' voor informeel bestuurlijk overleg van de Stuurgroep Deltaprogramma oktober 2024, waarbij een keuze is gemaakt voor conceptuele, overzichtelijke en vereenvoudigde kaartbeelden, ten koste van nauwkeurigheid en volledigheid.

De kaarten laten op regionale schaal de situaties zien waar het huidige bodem- en watersysteem, landgebruik en beheer onder druk komen en keuzes op nationaal niveau nodig zijn, en waaraan het Deltaprogramma kan bijdragen. ... Read more

As the elementary unit of the urban forest, trees temper thermal extremes in urban microclimates through shading and evapotranspiration, and by altering the movement of air. Metrics on shade performances of different species, however, are currently limited, which can be remedied by the development of a method to describe the range of species and cultivars via a structured overview of physical characteristics impacting radiation reflectivity, absorptivity, and transmissivity. This paper proposes a descriptive framework based on the concept of “tree architecture,” which has developed into a recognized field of plant study from the perspective of their physiognomy, morphology, and morphogenesis. The framework describes various architectural sub-traits within the overall trait categories of Crown, Wood, and Foliage. The descriptive framework can be used to develop a “Cool Tree Architecture Typology” (C-TAT), in which trees can be organized into similar types based on common physical characteristics. Further elaboration of sub-traits using observations of trees in controlled field laboratories resulted in new derivative classes for use as key in classifications for the C-TAT. The C-TAT can be used to organize the many species and cultivars occurring in, for example, Cfb Atlantic climate zone cities, to a lesser number of architectural types. This allows for more rapid evaluation and cooling performance calculations of tree inventories and can also be of value in assisting tree managers to propose more accurate thermal performance standards for trees in urban projects. The elaboration of tree architecture from an urban microclimate perspective complements existing elaborations and approaches in the field of tree architecture. ... Read more

This booklet shows the process and results of Ode aan de Hollandse Waterlinies, a project developed in the elective course Landscape Architecture ON site. Research, analysis and Sense of Place formed the base of this project. The central aim of this course was to express the given site in a project at the interface between landscape architecture, landscape art and theatrical performance. This year the focus is on inundation and the inundation fields. As part of research for the festival “Ode aan de Hollandse Waterlinies 2021” our team - consisting of fifteen Master students - has realised a temporary interactive architectural installation in a privately owned meadow landscape, where cows, meadow birds and farmers live and work. ... Read more

The multi-dimensionality of BwN calls for the incorporation of ‘designerly ways of knowing and doing’ from other fields involved in this new trans-disciplinary approach. The transition out of a focus on rational design paradigms towards reflective design paradigms such as those employed in the spatial design disciplines may be a first step in this process. By extension, the knowledge base and design methodologies of BwN may be critically expanded by drawing on ways of knowing and doing in spatial design disciplines such as landscape architecture, which elaborates the agency of the term ‘landscape’ as counterpart to the term ‘nature’. Operative perspectives and related methodologies in this discipline such as perception, anamnesis, multi-scalar thinking, and process design resonate with specific themes in the BwN approach such as design of/with natural processes, integration of functions or layers in the territory and the connection of engineering works to human-social contexts. A series of installations realised for the Oerol festival on the island of Terschelling between 2011 and 2018 serve as case studies to elaborate potential transfers and thematic elaborations towards BwN. In these projects inter-disciplinary teams of students, researchers and lecturers developed temporary landscape installations in a coastal landscape setting. Themes emerging from these project include ‘mapping coastal landscapes as complex natures’, ‘mapping as design-generative device’, ‘crowd-mapping’, ‘people-place relationships’, ‘co-creation’, ‘narrating coastal landscapes’, ‘public interaction’ and ‘aesthetic experience’. Specific aspects of these themes relevant to the knowledge base and methodologies of BwN, include integration of sites and their contexts through descriptive and projective mappings, understanding the various spatial and temporal scales of a territory as complex natures, and the integration of collective narratives and aesthetic experiences of coastal infrastructures in the design process, via reflective dialogues. ... Read more

The WeSense pilot trialled in the Greater Amsterdam region, demonstrates that Social Sensing using mobile electronic devices is effective in the collection of real-time, location-specific data from citizens and visitors on perceptions and responses to a wide variety of environments in metropolitan areas. This form of data generation also allows for the inclusion of a range of critical parameters affecting perception, such as: time of the day, day of the week, season, weather, activity, company, and state of mind. Additional incorporation of sensorial aspects such as visual, auditory, and olfactory sensations in the WeSense pilot shows promise, but needs to be better incorporated. The WeSense platform shows that use of social sensing using mobile technology supplements traditional environmental research methods by facilitating situated responses. Users contribute data on how they experience an outdoors space while they are situated in that space (situated data creation) which reproduces their immediate impressions with the surroundings. The most immediate ‘proofing’ of this advantage is the generation of photos by different users. ... Read more

Expected sea-level rise poses an increasing threat to Dutch coastal areas. Continuous
human interventions in these areas aim to prevent the lowlands from drowning.
This booklet shows the process and results of aeolis-gap the border developed during the elective course Landscape Architecture ON Site, offered by TU Delft MSc Landscape Architecture. As part of the research program related to coastal defence, the group developed an architectural intervention in the dune landscape to accelerate the growth of dunes.
The Wadden islands have been barrier islands for the Netherlands for hundreds of years but due to the rising sea level they are under great pressure. Therefore, the Oerol Festival at Terschelling is a great platform to experiment and understand this concept and interweaving it with art. Landscape, art and science come together in this project. The design process is based on experiences of the place, experiments, prototyping results of theoretical and landscape studies, workshops and brainstorm sessions. ... Read more

Gelderland is een regio met bijzondere landschappelijke kwaliteiten. De Veluwe,
het Rivierengebied met haar stuwwallen en het coulisselandschap in de Achterhoek zijn landelijk bekend. Ook het stedelijke landschap mag er zijn, met Hanzesteden, de campus van Wageningen en de bruisende binnensteden van Arnhem en Nijmegen met de Nevengeul bij Lent. Toch worden de kansen die het landschap biedt voor een aantrekkelijk vestigingsklimaat nog onvoldoende benut. Zeker, blijkt nu, waar het gaat om landschappen die zich niet laten indelen in termen van stad of land. Door de opgezette methodiek werd dit onderzoek juist met haar blik naar deze hybride landschappen gestuurd. Zo zijn er wel 150 nieuwe categorieën uit het stad-land continuüm te herleiden: stadsrandzones, overgangsgebieden, tussenland, volkstuincomplexen, rommelzones. Het zijn misschien vaak kleine gebieden, maar samen vormen ze wel 28% van de regio. Vergeet dus vanaf nu je vastomlijnde ideeën over het begrip stad en land en kijk mee met wat zich aandient, als je met een open visie het landschap opnieuw analyseert. ... Read more

Given that the polder boezem* system, and in particular its network structure, is crucial to the spatial identity of the Dutch cultural landscape, a thorough cultural- historical understanding of that system is a precondition for the effective implementation of necessary future changes to the system. The boezem system in the western part of the Netherlands evolved over a period of more than five hundred years and exhibits considerable local differences in structure and form. It developed in response to a combination of a falling ground level and a rising sea level, which meant that excess water could no longer be drained without additional measures. Existing streams, watercourses and canals were accordingly diked in, modified and connected to one another to store water from the neighbouring polders or discharge it into the water outside the dikes. Within this system, a water level was established somewhere between the water levels inside and outside the dikes. To bridge the difference, sluices and pumping stations were built at discharge points. In order to fully understand the boezem system in the Randstad** study area, several different landscape layers were investigated. To determine the landscapearchitectural character, drawings were made based on historical maps and reconstructions, such as paleogeographic maps. The drawings were made using the overlay technique, which entails the superimposition of information from different historical sources. Each final drawing represents a reduction of information about the topic under consideration. This approach revealed three distinct landscape layers: the natural, the cultural-technical and the urban. The natural landscape layer is a reflection of geological formation: the landscape as shaped by the forces of nature. The cultural-technical landscape layer arose out of the confrontation between the natural landscape and the land reclamation grid. The urban landscape layer represents a further modification and transformation of the two previous layers. In the Randstad study area, boezems were created in a variety of landscape types: the coastal zone, the river landscape, the fenland areas and the marine clay landscape with polders. Each type of landscape has its own peculiarities, differences and similarities when it comes to the form of the storage basin (boezem). This shows that the boezem is not just an important link in the water management system; it is also an important spatial carrier of the various landscapes. Once identified and defined, those qualities can play a role in the preservation of the identity of the ever-changing landscape. The research method outlined in this article can be applied to a variety of water systems and can be of use in a revaluation of culturally and historically significant water systems worldwide. ... Read more