Within the European context, the Hambach region manifests conflictual and dialectical relationships drawn upon a territory transformed from a constellation of rural villages interrupted by Markwalds - common forests - into a territorial machine shaped by the rhythms of the lignite extraction. While ecologists' movements occupy the remaining forests, the voracious expansion of the mining operations has led to a continuous displacement of many villages - then rebuilt in generic and prefab modules at the minimum cost - while the "abandoned" towns have been re-populated by migrants. A floating solar park, an artificial yet idyllic lake, a void kept as-it-is as a perverse touristic attraction; as the coal phase-out is approaching in 2030, the many proposals for the redevelopment of the region can be read as a collection of ideologies - techno-fix, nostalgic, techno-romantic - which all fail to account for the multiple and diverse conditions of the site. Instead, the thesis investigates how to mediate a relationship with the very site of those conflicts: the soil. Beyond productive purposes and idyllic representations, the soil is understood as a civic milieu - a laboratory for new forms of life. The project addresses the aforementioned issues in the form of a constellation of interventions: a multiplicity of narrations rather than ever-fixed and replicable solutions. An occasion to reflect on and question the implicit power of architecture-as-media that traces relations and to wonder about the quality of these relations as a possible field of agency as an architect: to affirm architecture as a tool in staging the multiplicity of the real.

The proximity of rivers stimulated the development of the economy and culture of civilizations throughout the ages. Consequently, the advancements in technology allowed people to influence the riverine systems. In riparian areas, such as the Vistula River Delta, the river was regulated and the land was reclaimed to accommodate agriculture, urbanization and industries. Besides the spatial changes, the anthropogenic alterations have also environmental consequences, namely increased risk of flooding and limited water and sediment retention capacity of the delta. Lowered ecological performance of the riverine edges lead to a higher amount of contaminants being discharged to the Vistula River and subsequently to the Baltic Sea. The pollution caused by human activities as well as severe changes in the climate profoundly affect the state of ecosystems and human health.

Designing for regeneration of socio-ecological systems along the Vistula River is based on understanding the relationships between the pollution flows, flooding and the performance of the riverine edges. The project suggests a systemic transition towards more regenerative riverine landscapes with a focus on the redefinition of the edge space by remodeling landscape topography and the use of specific vegetation. The landscape design provides ecosystem services, including improvement of water quality, flood management, biodiversity and recreation.
The proposal illustrates possible changes in the three exemplary riverine edges, namely an agricultural edge and an underutilized and post-industrial edge in the city of Gdansk. The choice of these types of edges was based on the fact that agriculture is the biggest factor that contributes to the eutrophication of the Baltic Sea (HELCOM, 2015), while the post-industrial edges in Gdansk face environmental and spatial challenges that might become potentialities for future changes.
The design and its possible expansion intend to enhance the ecological, social and economic performance of the Vistula River edges. Higher ecological performance is achieved through the implementation of remediation practices and creating space for flood accommodation. Whereas, social and economic performance is enhanced by new functions and an increase of accessibility and connectedness of the edges. The proposal might act as a model for transitions of the Vistula river tributaries as well as other riverine systems facing similar issues. That is thanks to the set of design principles established in the project. The ambition of the thesis is to contribute to the promotion of ecological awareness and advocacy in Poland.

This thesis builds on the proposition that the ocean is both an urban and social space. Therefore, marine planning needs to consider socio-cultural risks and opportunities to be deemed sustainable. This reconceptualisation is especially relevant for the Barents Sea, where retreating sea ice leaves the ocean more accessible to marine traffic and resource extraction every year. However, the current practice of marine spatial planning (MSP) responds predominantly to geopolitical and economic demands for resources like gas and oil - only the monetary value of the ocean is considered. It fails to provide an understanding of the ocean as a space of cultural values, memory, and meaning. As a result, the socio-cultural impacts of offshore development remain alarmingly unmapped and unknown. As an interplay between research and design, urbanism can understand human-sea relations and employ this understanding in spatial interventions, where MSP cannot.
Following this hypothesis, I aim to approach the Barents Sea as an urban and local project. What does it mean to be at sea, to be changed by the sea, and to change it in return? How is the local economy of life dependent on conditions of marine space? And how can urban designers use this knowledge to affect change. In the first place, this is a theoretical work. I hypothesize what offshore urbanism should entail, propose entrances of design, and compose design principles in the Barents Sea.

The theory is tested in a case study: the coastal community of Hammerfest. The current network composition of the Hammerfest maritory shows a system that is overdependent on petroleum activity. The project proposes two pathways of change towards a future where Hammerfest depends on a variety of alternative marine industries. As such, the community becomes more resilient to changes in offshore petroleum. Particularly after 2035, when the current production fields are depleted and extraction moves seaward, away from Hammerfest.

Network analysis forms a key point of entrance for the maritorial design. The project regards ships as islands that are inhabited, occupied, and built by humans. They are urban nodes at sea. The maritory can thus be read as an interdependent network of nodes (islands, platforms, pipelines, ships) connected by the movement of goods and people. I use marine traffic density data to analyze the nodal patterns of movement. From it, we can read the organization of marine uses and their spatial relation to Hammerfest.
I then select one node from the current network, the island Melkøya, to redevelop as the root of the proposed transition. The prospected departure of the gas industry established on Melkøya provides an opportunity to repurpose the island. Through the act of deconstruction and rehabilitation, the gas processing island is repurposed as a public port, harbouring local marine industry and recreation. From the island Melkøya, a new economy of life is allowed to grow seawards.

Ultimately, the purpose of this research is to actuate academics and urbanists to use design as a means to inform and inspire MSP, and to open the discourse on offshore urbanism.

Uncertainty posed by Climate Change brings control approaches to environmental processes and dynamics into question. In the Netherlands and particularly in the Dutch River area (Rivierenland in Dutch) narratives have already shifted towards an adaptive planning (Davoudi, 2013). However, there is still a need to go beyond the physical cultural and programmatic separation between rivers -active areas in flood management- and the urbanized territory -passive areas in flood management-. The definition of these dualities in the Dutch territory not only feeds a model based on vulnerability, but it also leaves the problem of a fragmented landscape unsolved. Aiming at the enhancement of adaptive territories and the embracement of uncertainty, the thesis proposes the operationalization of an approach based on enhanced connectivity throughout the territory, where every part of the urbanized territory takes a role in the active management of floods and ecosystem restoration. An approach aiming at restoring systemic proximities between culture and nature and between local land management and territorial water safety. The main design outcome of the thesis is a transformation pathway towards the hybridization of the territory by increasing ecological densities and buffer capacities per land management unit. A pathway where synergistic coupling of functions are activated locally, triggering processes of innovation and cultural appropriation of the proposal, as opportunities for emerging ecosystem-based production models. The graduation research is positioned within an emerging urban paradigm, one that re-defines the act of urbanization as an act of re-territorialization (Deleuze and Guatari, 2000), where land uses are associated to evolutionary land roles that different occupation patterns perform in the establishment of a more symbiotic relation with the ecology in which these are embedded. Sources: Davoudi, S., Brooks, E., & Mehmood, A. (2013). Evolutionary resilience and strategies for climate adaptation. Planning Practice & Research, 28(3), 307-322. Guattari, F., & Deleuze, G. (2000). A thousand plateaus: capitalism and schizophrenia. London: Athlone Press.

Infrastructure, industry and extraction have greatly reshaped the North Sea over the last five decades. These specific elements played and still play a vital role in the growth and evolution of the North Sea and its adjacent countries. Among all the fishing and oil industry have become highly governmentally influenced machines and are imposing structural injustice on those in contact with its multi scalar impact. Both industries appear seemingly very different from each other however, both take part in the imposition in terms of pollution, territorial claims and impacts on identity and culture. This role has its direct effects on people closely linked to these systems, but also to those far beyond the boundaries of the North Sea. Their lives forever changed, with a low possibility to ever act against. One of the main reasonings behind this imposing role are the detached positions of these industries in relation to their territorial specificities. The lack of integration in terms of site specific entities such as climate, flows and culture are enhanced by its alienated and detached appearance directly result in the separation of man, machine and territory. Unfortunately, these industries are currently indispensable for our present-day lives, without them we couldn’t live as freely and developed as we do now. To act against the structural injustice imposed by the industries a new type of industry must be introduced and by means of it an energy transition. Allowing for maintaining benefits, yet without the imposed disintegration known from our current state of existence. The duality imposed by these industries is clearly notable in Bergen, Norway. Being Norway’s largest centre of sea based extraction, production, transportation, research and education Bergen has greatly benefitted from the extraction of oil and fish however always correlated by strong cases of structural injustice. On the other side of the industry stands Bergen’s unique landscape and its territorial specificities unlike any other city surrounding the North Sea. Together they embody a topography of chance suitable for this new type of industry, which is set to initialise an integrated and coalesced energy transition. Its result is a new approach to an equilibrium between all related subjects and objects, while providing a bodily experience embedded in and exposed to territory, flows and machine. The new type of industry entails a series of interventions linked to a multi scalar energy transition in terms of production and utilisation by means of direct linkage between man, machine and territory. The proposition consists of three main elements: a hydrogen production facility, a fuelling station and a bath house. Each individual element plays a critical role in the integration and coalescence of production, flows and territory to create an integrated and sustainable energy transition. The hydrogen production facility as the manifestation of integrated production and service to the city by means of both product and waste. The fuelling station as the long term solution and the possibility of reterritorialization of fjordic waters by local fishermen. And lastly the bath house as a social proposition of full process exposure, tangibility and integration. These elements make various appearances ranging from: the uncovering of present-day systems to the management of site specificities, use and enhancement of cultural aspects and the utilisation of clean energy and waste. Furthermore, a moment of reflection on the self and the structural injustice imposed by the governmental machines which we currently heavily rely on. Together acting as a statement of minimal intervention to maximise territorial use and therefore the activation of structural justice by means of integration.

Globalisation and global urbanisation are reshaping our world. Life in Central Places is expanding; life in remote territories is vanishing. For centuries, subsistence agriculture sustained rural communities the world over; that raison d’être has now largely vanished. Cities mine the territory for fuel, material resources, food and even population. Simultaneously, our globalised world faces serious challenges as we try to move beyond oil and to a circular economy. The remote island of Flotta in the Orkney archipelago exemplifies these themes, and offers possible visions for a future world in which the remote territory exists in symbiosis with the centralised city. In the coming decade, the Flotta Oil Terminal will close. Flotta’s population is aging, and its vital services are gradually vanishing. There is a small but significant influx of people fleeing the city- looking for an old, but now-vanished way of life in the remote territory. Friction on Flotta is rising as these few, new romantics interact with the pragmatically-minded last generation of Flottarians. Community is not always rosy. The closure of the oil terminal will likely be the nail in the coffin of human habitation of Flotta. Orkney also has a waste management problem- shipping scrap metal to distant, central locations. Simultaneously the Orkney archipelago is ‘the Saudi Arabia of renewable energy’. It already generates much more electricity than it needs, but struggles to export the surplus via a subsea cable designed to transfer power to and not from the islands. Renewable energy is not best suited to central cities- it is Energy at the End of the World. Traversing the island, the Bruck-Mining Saga forms a connection between the point where the Flotta subsea electricity cable lands and the remote edge of a ruined, wartime landscape facing out to sea. It pragmatically mines metal bruck at infrastructural scale, creating new material for export and thus a new economy by using the locally generated renewable electricity surplus. The metal recycling plant occupies the site of an abandoned airfield from the early days of the oil terminal- which constitutes a form of spatial bruck. In time, the oil terminal will also become bruck. The creation of ‘new metal’ in turn facilitates the embellishment/ establishment of a craft metal working/ jewellery making tradition on the island. This draws Flotta into the existent Creative Orkney Trail and brings bruck metal mining to the scale of the human, and indeed even to that of the wearer. These workshops inhabit a series of wartime ruins, which are of course a form of architectural bruck. They preserve and embellish the romantic attraction of this story to visitors of Orkney. Such stories of the remote are vital to humanity: ‘Once upon a time in a land far, far away…’ Where does the community fit in- complete with all its beauty and imperfections? It occupies a point of transition between these two spheres of production, where a series of spaces house the rich tapestry of Flotta stories past, present and future. These subterranean spaces form a modern monument which both record and enable the telling of stories that are crucial to the plural identities of the evolving Flotta community, and which in turn reflect our broader humanity. In doing so, they become simultaneously a museum, community arts space and landmark. More permanent than any infrastructure can or ever should be, they cement a part of our humanity in the remote island territory. They say: ‘We’re still here.’

While technological development and the rising Second Machine Age are already firmly affecting the notion of labour and the consequent disposition of our cities and territories, the remote island of Hammerfest, in the Arctic regions of Finnmark, prefigures the conditions for a radical rebirth. The full extents of automation, resulting in a post-labour organisation of economy, envisions the return of the homo ludens and enhances play as fundamental base of the new society. The explosive decentralisation of production and distribution suddenly wipes out the city, the core centre of our consumerist lives, and promotes the return to the landscape, where new pillars of society are established. On this island of utopian playground, individuals are now fully capable of engendering the shape of their existence, clustering around the ludic elements and interacting with each other in playful activities, while machines take care of their fundamental needs. Among the elements, the Theatre represents the highest form of play and, therefore, the most essential component of public life. Facing the growing automated port and the perished city, the machine of the theatre is a bridge between land and sea, on the particular conditions of a site that constantly changes under the cyclical variations of the tide. In front of the spectacle of automation, what humans stare at is the activity that has been taken away from them, the agency of their actions. A new kind of theatricality is therefore needed. Since the demise of labour invests anyone with the possibility of becoming actors of the play, the sense of spectatorship itself is questioned. Far from the optical relation of the theatron (sight), that has so far embodied its cornerstone, the theatre has now to be subjected to another relation, suggested by the word drama (action), thus endowing the becoming performative of production. The Theatre of Automation is therefore a social endeavour, aiming at bringing the theatrical performance to the level of a collective form of life, where the role of the spectator merges with the one of the actor. In other terms, the machine of the theatre takes active part in the transformation of the site, unfolding and accelerating the artificial manipulation of the territory at the hand of technology. As an act of formation, first, of physical, cultural and ultimately of political nature, the Theatre measures the pace of changes, interpolating the urgency of human artifex with the rhythm of natural systems. When climate change and sea level rise will set the eventual limit of the Machine, interrupting its floating dance on the tides, the Theatre will come to its final act. Rich with the collective memory of the site, it will close its stage and set sail towards new destinations, bearing the paradigm of a new society, on the threshold between human, machine and nature.

Land and Sea are of a very different kind. One roots people to their contexts, tying them to its borders, properties and complex systems of relations; the other suggests the possibility for limit-less, unconditional wandering, an overwhelming experience of movement, in both space and time. This ancient tension between the anthropic process of colonizing Land – as the space of exploitation for collective survival – and the unseizable wilderness of the Sea – the realm of individual bravery – is the founding act of western societies. However, this delicate balance – or perpetual confrontation – is now endangered by its own premises. Land, as intrinsically limited, is reaching its maximum capacity: to ensure our survival and growth, the Sea is being identified as the new frontline for the rationalizing logics of territorialization. The Sea-as-a-territory is a political imposition: it is the tool for the collectivity – or the state – to enforce its hegemony on the sea-scape. Being the Sea a context-less space, dynamic, free from roots and limitations, the logics of colonization and exploitation are projected with even more harshness and strength. The Sea is facing the risk to lose its original role as memory of individual freedom – beyond the state; nevertheless, its exploitation is crucial to the survival of the collectivity and cannot be avoided. Therefore, the notion of the Sea-as-a-territory needs to be mitigated, in order to re-establish a coexistence of opposites, or at least to create awareness of the dualistic relation between the two paradigms of Land and Sea. The North Sea is urbanizing quickly and violently; such trends appear to be most visible in the Flemish Coast, a region which is deeply struggling to rule on its waters – groundwater and sea – while planning further expansions towards the sea, to protect the coast from storm waves. To meet the needs of the region – and of the collectivity – while mitigating the territorialization processes towards the Sea, the construction of an island is proposed, to be realized in four phases: the formation (I) or the act of imposing order with the definition of a protective wall; the accommodation (II) or the territorial reclamation using natural conditions; the production (III) or the desalination of seawater as act of exploitation; and the colonization (IV) or the human element, through the construction of a system of pools. The constant confrontation of these four elements – the wall, the landscape-in-formation, the desalination plant, the baths – constitutes the possibility for a different interpretation to the Sea-as-a-territory. Their relation – spatial and temporal – might become the trigger for a new consciousness on the mitigated narrative of territorialization, this time ruled by the intrinsic condition of ephemerality of the process itself. The island-as-an-outpost – or the island-machine – is a fortress; and fortresses are always doomed to surrender.

The project emerges from the acknowledgement of the growing phenomena of archive fever (Derrida, 1995). Driven by the need, obligation, desire or simply possibility to store a growing amount of both - physical objects and digital data, and encouraged with a constantly increasing capacity of digital media storage - we keep on gathering more. Often unconsciously or with little curation of the collected content, we keep on creating a limitless cloud archive, that has an overwhelming physical presence that takes over hectare after hectare of land. Huge, anonymous, dark and hot space, placed in a remote location – that is a typical data centre. Blending into the neighbouring storage halls is easily omitted and stays hidden from the public sight. Data storage came a long way from the representative architecture of banks, archives and city halls to a unit defined storage facility. Therefore, one may say that data centre is a continuation of the typology of storing and archiving. And a storage type that emerges is an opaque container defined by the size of a stored unit - server. These content defined buildings, technical as they are, allow for almost no human presence, but do potentially manage through their sheer size to organize and control the context they inhabit, the territory. One cannot underestimate their urban impact. Current trends in technology, among others, the Internet of Things and a growing amount of latency dependent applications will generate a need to introduce data into the cities. That gives a unique opportunity to redefine existing data centre typology. Even though data is already fully integrated and present in our lives, we rarely acknowledge it. What is more, due to a lack of understanding of data flows we are often excluded from the discussion on the degree of its presence in our lives or surveillance. The proposed project, is a gesture that brings data, technology, citizens and urban context together, emphasizing interconnections and interdependence of all aforementioned. This way introducing one of the most significant elements of our infrastructure physically into the culture, giving digital data a physical weight and interface. Creating friction between public and private, human and machine – that are completely dependent on each other and cannot function without the other.

The thesis explores the socio-territorial orientation of Finnmark, northern Norway, in relation to the growing international interest for the development of the mineral industry. This interest is met locally with directly opposing views, favouring on the one hand the cultural development related to land-based practices, and on the other hand exploiting Finnmarks high resource potential for the benefit of municipal growth and job development. Difficulties arise with the geographic distribution of ethnicities. Proposed developments of the mineral industry find more support in coastal areas and although most indigenous Sámi find their home inland, they depend to a large degree for their livelihood on this coastal areas. The current fractured political landscape is highly related to and tied up with the complex history of internal center-periphery dynamics, colonization and stigmatization, which took (and in a way are still taking) place under the flagship of national assimilation policies of ‘norwegianization’, sustaining Finnmarks not-so-postcolonial present. In this perspective, three mining cases are of interest, due to the different social and political responses to the mining plans: Nussir in Kvalsund, Bidjovagge in Kautokeino and Sydvaranger in Sør-Varanger. Motivations behind decision-making on these cases illustrate clearly the conflicts of interests and demonstrate the difficulties for coexistence of directly opposing world views. Through an understanding of the formation of societal strata, the argument of the thesis unfolds over an in-depth spatiotemporal and on-site analysis of the cases and their specific socio-territorial setting in Finnmark. I argue that we should look more critically at the tendentious role of the modus operandi of urbanists and geologists (more specifically of resource mappers), in their way of influencing decision-making and framing and shaping cultural life, especially in contested territories. The thesis then moves towards a possible way forward through redesigning our conventional tools and methods for a more inclusive territorial-based endogenous growth model, such an inclusive growth model has the potential to bring together on the long term the opposing visions and ideas on the future of the mining industry and the preservation of indigenous culture. I end by arguing that knowledge building from a combined perspective has the potential to evolve the acceptance amongst cultures abiding by different worldviews. Effectively, the newly proposed geological era of the Anthropocene, proposes also the updating modern science with cultural diversity, asking for renewed responses away from the modern tradition.

Material possession has become our objective for existence. Capital surrounds and defines us. The high dynamics of global flows dominate the planetary web of connectivity. Consumption, production and assembly have become the holy trinity of the neo-liberal realm we live in. It is a manifestation of the global dynamics, neglecting distances, identity and time, yet celebrating purpose, capital and proliferation. Meanwhile, the aftermaths of these actions remain concealed. The Zone of Disassembly reacts to this imbalance and aims to track, unveil and transform one of the consumption’s tangible outcomes: the e-waste.

Currently, the e-waste is the fastest-growing stream of waste. The contradicting nature of this matter has defined the dualistic nature of this type of waste: value and toxicity have become fundamental terms when mentioning e-waste. Yet both of them could easily exist in unison when the issue is being tackled carefully. This project resembles a critique toward the current policies regarding e-waste: incompetent formulation of recycling practises and lack of contemporary, adequate methodology results in the conscious exclusion of these so-called ore-streams results in huge economic, natural and ecological loses. ‘The Zone of Disassembly’ derives from the question of territory and formulates a spatial intervention which has the potential to unveil the North Sea hidden e-flows. It is articulated via two interconnected spatial agencies, which establish an infrastructural threshold: the waste archipelago and the waste plant.

The waste archipelago resembles a spatial switch whose aim is to reshuffle the existing network of flows within the North Sea and unveiled the hidden such. This artificial set of islands aims to navigate between the territorial waste and material flows. It establishing a flexible framework defined by multipliable spatial syntax which could easily be translated in various contexts. Furthermore, it acts as a catalyst for a productive landscape fostered by the premises of absolute technology and omnipotent densification.

The on-shore part of the project aims to manifest the momentum of the territorial intervention, by emphasising the physical metamorphosis of waste into matter. While the offshore port establishes a vital node handling the global streams of electronic dumping, the disassembly plant resembles a spatial medium; a threshold between global and local, human and machine, manual and automated. The Zone of Disassembly addresses the various social actors ,by exposing the physical acts disassembling. The building act as political infrastructure which transparency agitates the public and exposes the sensibility of the e-waste polemic. Neither utopian nor dystopian, 'The Zone of Disassembly' is a surreal endeavour, which challenges our perception of e-waste and points towards the manifold possibilities veiled under the act of ignorance.

We’re living in an era where spaces of logistics are further being detached from cities and urbanization to avoid choke points. But as these spaces migrate they leave traces of spaces permeating the city. What might be the impact of these logistical residual spaces whether large or very small on the expanding urban environment creating a clash, chaos and wastelands. The Port of Rotterdam is going under change concerning the petrochemical part. The reasons of decrease of oil in the last decade for the aim to shift to more sustainable energy production and for the increase of toxic spills on the ground and atmosphere. What would be the use of the abandoned toxic land of the petrochemical part of the Port, that once was storing oil, one of natures most needed source of for human survival, and refining it through burning.

The manipulation of the delta landscape in the Rotterdam region, to meet the economic desire of society, resulted in a degradation of ecosystem services. Each eco-based design, such as the case-study ‘the River as a Tidal Park’, is subjected to a wide range of environmental, societal and political risks. Considering the extremely uncertain projected risks for increasing sea levels and more extreme river discharges after 2050, the river does not provide the flexibility the future demands. After the implementation of relatively short term and local scale initiatives the projects are still subjected to these uncertainties, which makes the long-term values uncertain as well. Therefore, it might result in a loss of capital for partners as the project appears to be unsustainable. Accordingly, the thesis aims for ensuring the project provides the desired ecosystem services for 2100 and costs and benefits are distributed more evenly among stakeholders through time and space. To bridge the gap between time and space, the thesis considers the concept of seeing and working with “Nature as a New Economy’ as a starting point. This concept focuses on the development, preservation and regeneration of nature to obtain most values from it. The thesis approaches two scenarios for 2100. The Rest Scenario considers moderate climate change and socio-economic decline and the Steam Scenario investigates extreme climate change and socio-economic growth. The research follows in a search for value synergies among both scenarios to find ‘no regret’ measures for the short term. To guide decision-makers in the process between short term investments and long term needs, an adaptive framework is developed. This framework provides guidelines to take action when specific tipping points in time are reached. The hypothesis is to what extend the value of ecosystem services can be inverted in time to use it as a design instrument in relation to decision-making processes. The research question which leads the thesis is: "How can the concept of ‘Nature as a New Economy’ be used for the development of an adaptive design for the spatial transformation of the fluvial zone of the Nieuwe Maas considering the uncertain future?" The thesis’ results show that, with the proposed adaptive design, most ecosystem services increase through time. This results in increasing interest and a model of revenue for stakeholders, which makes sure that the project can be extended until 2100. The concept of ‘Nature as a New Economy’ is providing decision-makers with a language to give insight in the benefits for them on the long term, is increasing the financial support for the project and will reduce the risks for future generations. It makes decision-makers aware of the value of nature and that it could go beyond economic growth. It can be seen as an inversion of the concept of nature: nature is no longer seen as something we have to fight against to strive for economic growth. Nature can now be seen as an economy itself which is the new value for producing economic growth.

In the light of climate change, ecosystem derangement and debasement of local economies in the name of globalisation and free trade, capitalism has almost exhausted its source of nourishment: Nature. Within today’s globalised urbanisation, cities seem to be better linked to the planetary system of production and trade than to their surrounding context. However, going beyond the widespread –and very popular- myth that humans act as destructive agents of the pure and delicate nature, instrumentalising the landscape to support various production models has always been the way to build human economies and societies. Today’s rupture with nature is still manifested in the antithesis between Economy and Ecology, as two opposing notions. The concept of placing humanity within natural processes [or, in the other way around, defining humans as custodians of nature’s ecological heritage] has strong supporters in the field of urbanism and landscape, and strict critics in practice. That being the case, the question is this: which are the new ecologies of the Anthropocene that could transform negative outputs of our current economic model [pollutants, waste flows] into inputs of new productive landscapes? The Dutch-Flemish Delta is used as the test bed for a new projective ecology, where pollutants causing eutrophication (nitrogen, phosphorus, CO2, algae) are captured in order to facilitate processes that generate value out of them (food production, energy) and trigger a shift in economy that will both reshape the deltaic landscape as well as set the foundations for a bio-based economy in the future. A flexible synergy between diverse components [pollution, water, existing infrastructure] is unveiled, enhancing the adaptive capacity of local economies, ecosystems and socio-spatial constructs. In the end, as pollution becomes historical, nature becomes a landscape of flows and fluids that co-exist and co-evolve.

The current notion of risk used in the Netherlands has a strong focus on reducing the probability that flooding occurs. It leaves little attention for reducing exposure and vulnerability, as the other components when defining risk. Socio-economic trends show that the areas below sea level will be only more densely inhabited with people and will experience only more economic growth. This along the predicted sea level rise and greater fluctuations in river discharge compel research on spatial planning and urban design to look far into the future, to widen their scope and to anticipate developments further ahead.

This project aims at transition of the current way the Netherlands deal with the increasing treat of water zooming in on the situation of the city of Rotterdam and proposing to create more adaptive capacity of the spatial structure in order to deal with future uncertainties in the context of extreme climate change scenarios.
The scenario the project is dealing with, shows that 3 meter of sea level rise before the year 2100 and drastic precipitation changes could become reality. This thesis focuses on the possibilities of restructuring the Randstad region throughout the scales (in space and in time), including Rotterdam, assigning densification zones and areas of relocation towards reduction of flood risk exposure of the extreme flood scenario. The project explores what it would mean for the city and the citizens of Rotterdam if all the areas below sea level get relocated to higher grounds. The transformation of infrastructures and networks is described on a spatial level at the city, neighborhood and at street- scale. Design interventions show what Rotterdam could look like in 2060 and what spatial qualities it could bring if we already start now to prepare the city for the future. This contribution of spatial planning and urban design can help filling the gap of knowledge about the spatial uncertainty climate change brings. It can also help in finding new ways of dealing with water that can prolongate the line of water expertise of the Dutch. Truly new visions on this subject can only emerge by leaving the beaten track.