Water scarcity is a growing issue in Europe, driven by the overexploitation of natural resources for anthropogenic activities, intensified by global pressures, and exacerbated by climate change. This has resulted in environmental degradation in many regions, including desertification and an increased risk of flooding. These symptoms signal a disrupted relationship between humans and nature and emphasise the need to transition towards a more socio-ecologically resilient water system. However, designing for systemic change remains challenging, as existing frameworks often fail to bridge theoretical concepts and practical implementation across interconnected spatial and temporal layers.

This thesis addresses this gap by developing a symbiotic systemic design strategy for the water transition in the Segura River Basin, an arid region marked by intensive agricultural production and structural water scarcity. Through a research-by-design process, this study integrates the concept of symbiosis with a systemic design approach.

The outputs include: (1) a methodology for symbiotic strategic design of water system transitions, (2) a pattern language of symbiotic design interventions, and (3) a regional symbiotic strategy for the Segura River Basin. The results show that a symbiotic systemic design framework can effectively connect complex systems theory to actionable design strategies and policy-making. Therefore, this research offers inspiration for researchers, designers, and decision-makers to collaboratively develop context-specific, symbiotic solutions to integrated systemic problems, moving collectively towards a socio-ecologically resilient future. ... Read more

With urgent urban challenges such as climate adaptation, energy transition, the continued extraction of resources and pushing urbanisation, the urgency of integrating planning and design with urban engineering increases. The implementation of new technological interventions and the utilisation of the natural system is hampered by the lack of an integrated approach incorporating urban planning and design decisions. Meanwhile, urban and economic growth increasingly competes for infrastructure and environment, affecting the success or failure of the daily operating systems of cities and regions and thereby urban competitiveness. The challenge is to fundamentally rethink the urban landscape in light of transitions, new concepts and new technologies – as material and ecological practices. The question is how to renew existing urbanised areas by integrating parameters of the natural system and technological innovations directly into urban development opportunities arising from spatial planning and design. In order to stimulate and design the synergy between design and engineering the course Infrastructure and Environment Design offers the possibility for urban design and landscape architecture students to get well acquainted with the concepts and language of the technical field on the subject of infrastructure and environment.... ... Read more

With the current emissions and disasters due to climate change, the energy transition towards a sustainable and climate resilient future of Northwest Europe is now more important than ever. The fi rst steps have been made, but this transition is happening too slow and in an insufficient and uncollaborative manner. This research studies the spatial implications of the energy transition and aims to construct a framework that helps to accelerate the process and make it more efficient and socially just. The methods used for this are data analysis and research by design, combined with scenario building, by investigating and designing the case study of the province of South-Holland within the context frame of Northwest Europe. The results of this report show an integrated spatial vision on the energy transition on multiple scales. Additionally, it provides a strategic framework that consists of policies, organizational structures and physical interventions, both in space and time, that are structured in a catalog. This proposal helps accelerate the process of the energy transition, to be able to build on a sustainable future for energy production and distribution ... Read more