At a time of climate related water system change, the form and function of waterfronts is gaining more attention. The book Waterfront Regeneration in a Time of Climate Change: Recent Japanese and International Experiences, edited by Raffaele Pernice and Tetsuya Yaguchi, brings the case of waterfront regeneration in Japan into a broader global context. Building on an international symposium held at UNSW Sydney in 2022, the book engages a much-needed theme as it brings climate change and particularly water systems into the broader conversation on climate related water system change for coastal cities (SOS Waterfront). [...]

Digital tools and related open datasets, particularly for geospatial analysis, provide an opportunity to connect planning history more closely to the methods of planning practice and heritage itself. While contemporary planners have adopted advanced, data-driven tools to model urban systems and environmental risks, planning historians have largely kept relying on traditional methods, such as static cartography and archival interpretation. This disconnect has contributed to a widening gap between planning practice and its historiography. Drawing on historical examples, such as Maurice Rotival’s pioneering use of computers in planning, and recent digital mapping initiatives, this paper argues for a more integrated, interdisciplinary approach to planning history. It examines how digital platforms, datasets and analytical tools can improve spatial and temporal analysis while maintaining critical historical inquiry. The paper discusses practices such as GIS-based analysis, digital inventories and dashboards, and reflects on institutional and methodological barriers to wider adoption. Engaging with the digital turn enables planning history to evolve beyond biographical and text-based traditions, offering richer insights into the urban past and informing more sustainable, just and historically grounded futures.

War and military practices have shaped and reshaped cities and suburbia for millennia. Concentrated settlements hidden behind high walls were an important pattern of defence at a time before planes and aerial warfare. From the early twentieth century, decentralized settlements and urban deconcentration have provided better protection against military attacks. The Japanese military developed suburban settlements in the 1930s knowing the potential danger of wars fought in the dense cities mostly built out of wood. Modernist planners in post-war Germany proposed high-rise buildings in greenery, based on their experience of firestorms created by bombs and rubble that blocked streets. In the US, the defence industry was an integral part of the national suburbanization process. During WWII, the Mutual Ownership Defense Housing Division promoted the construction of suburban housing projects for defence workers and their families. Post-war suburbanization was fuelled by discharged veterans, while German-based US military housing settlements became a way to apply American ideals to the Cold War’s easternmost frontier. In Israel, American-style suburbs housing acting military officers formed a governmental tool to stimulate the development of peripheral towns and to facilitate territorial expansion. In conclusion, this chapter reflects on modern warfare in the design of contemporary cities.

The seemingly endless availability of energy of the twentieth century resulted in extensive sprawl, as people left cities for the suburbs and as companies expanded their production lines around the world. Since this time, shipping and other cheap forms of mobility have led to increasingly spread-out settlement and energy distribution patterns. The emergence of global petroleum networks between producers and consumers around the world has played a signicant role in the design and development of shipping, transportation, the urbanisation of the sea and in the construction of new land-side structures. Moreover, the use of petroleum as fuel for the military since the early twentieth century has helped drive the growth of maritime empires, such as Britain’s control of Iranian petroleum. For some years petroleum has oated on oil, allowing ports, cities and regions of the world to thrive on that very mixture.

The confluence of sea and city has left its mark on urban design, art, and literature. When we talk about port cities, we usually imply urban units defined by a special physical, technical, and cultural relationship with the sea, made possible by port infrastructure. In fact, the functionality of port cities has changed over time, and they have, at various points, been considered safe havens and defence posts. [...]

Abstract: The dynamic interplay between global maritime flows and the spatial, economic, and social development of port‐city‐regions lies at the heart of this thematic issue. As globalisation accelerates, the relationships between ports, cities, and their surrounding regions become increasingly complex, requiring innovative conceptual frameworks, methodologies, and interdisciplinary collaborations to address both challenges and opportunities. Flows of goods and people shape infrastructural networks and create nodes of logistics and administration in and around nearby cities. They establish specific networks that primarily facilitate transport. Multiple approaches and definitions exist to describe and map these unique spaces. This thematic issue of Ocean and Society aims to advance our understanding of these phenomena by exploring a range of terminologies, typologies, spatial transformations, and examples of sustainable practices across diverse geographic contexts.

Well-being is closely related to questions of housing and planning. Improving liveability has been a key desire for the Japanese architect and planner Nishiyama Uzo, who influenced Japanese design over half a century. Through his writings and design proposals, he influenced a large number of Japanese planners. Starting from the 1930s, Nishiyama promoted an Architecture of Humanism that referenced international ideas including from Ebenezer Howard, Le Corbusier and Milyutin. He proposed new ideas for the organisation of the urban structure as the basis for living and offered concepts for the form of urban housing. Structuring cities in small units was important for him and aligned with traditional ways of organising the Japanese city. Such an approach was also fundamental for bottom-up community planning that emerged in the 1960s. Overall, Nishiyama's promotion of humanist ideas promoted well-being in line with the form and function of Japanese cities.

Designing water systems – interconnected networks of water-related structures and practices – is not only a matter of technology and economics, but also of history, institutions and culture. Understanding these multiple, overlapping and interconnected spaces and practices requires a holistic approach that contextualizes current projects and helps identify challenges and opportunities. The article introduces a value case approach, including tools and methods that can be used to connect spatial, social and cultural conditions and their change over time. Such comprehensive understanding can potentially be used to facilitate societal change and guide political decision-making. The article first explores the rationale and setup of a value-case approach in the context of the PortCityFutures Center and the work of the UNESCO Chair Water, Ports and Historic Cities. It concludes by introducing key elements and methodological tools.

Planning history as a field is connected to many academic disciplines as well as to multiple spatial practices. Historians, social scientists, planners, educators or designers engage with planning history from their respective perspectives. They study the role of planning in the development of cities and landscapes, they explore the role of policy making or laws on spatial development, they investigate the role of teaching for the discipline of planning and they use historical analysis for future development projects. All of these multiple ways of engaging with planning history exist side-by-side and each has its own reason of being. [...]

Port cities are at the forefront of the contemporary climate crisis, facing multi-risk conditions from shifting water systems, migration, technological and energy transition. Addressing these challenges require collaborative stakeholder efforts to develop multi-scalar, long-term visions, focusing on interconnected port, city, and territory spaces for sustainable development. Historical continuities and maritime heritage mapping are foundational for adaptive strategies.

This article explores design education's potential to reimagine industrial and modern locations that fostered segregation and rigid infrastructure. Waterfront redevelopment, energy transitions, and new shipping technologies are ending these areas' lifecycle in many western port cities. Neglected spaces like obsolete infrastructure offer opportunities for innovative ideas. New maritime mindsets and collaborative public spaces are needed for meaningful stakeholder and citizen engagement.

Insights from the Adaptive Strategies master’s elective at Delft University of Technology demonstrate education's role in sparking discussions and developing adaptive strategies. The course, initiated after the 2021 Port of Beirut explosion, used Dunkirk's industrial heritage as a case study. This article argues that education can activate research, generate innovative planning approaches, and create integrated port-city-territory scenarios while questioning architecture's role and limitations.

The concept of values has become increasingly important in many fields, including water management, heritage preservation and design. Politicians, economists, water managers, heritage specialists and designers often consider values as guiding principles for their interventions. While water management has traditionally focused on technological and economic values, in recent decades there has been growing recognition of the significance of socio-cultural aspects. This shift is evident in initiatives like the United Nation’s Valuing Water Initiative, which recognized five “Valuing Water Principles” as guidelines for incorporating the values associated with water in decision-making. However, how to define and implement these values in particular contexts has not yet been clearly established, with approaches varying across disciplines and fields. Understanding the complex interdependencies and values characterizing each water system can help develop a strategy for integrated management of water with the goal of sustainable development with a long-term perspective and a design focus.

How do we protect our cities from rising sea levels? This question is no longer hypothetical for coastal cities like The Hague, the political capital of the Netherlands. Set to celebrate its 800th anniversary in 2042, The Hague faces significant risks from climate change, particularly from the rising North Sea. With the city’s rich history and cultural heritage connected to the maritime dynamics at stake, innovative strategies for climate adaptation are urgently needed. This was the central challenge tackled during the recent International Workshop Netherlands eXchanges Recife (NXR-2024), where experts, students, and professionals from across the globe collaborated to co-create solutions for sea level rise adaptation. [...]

Large ports such as Rotterdam, Shanghai, or Los Angeles are always in the foreground; they are in the press, the subject of many academic studies, and key players in political decision-making, but what about all small and medium-sized ports in the same territory? If we look at the map of the port city territory of Rotterdam (Hein et al., 2023), we see several red spots indicating the ports of Scheveningen, Schiedam, Dordrecht, and Moerdijk, among others. These ports facilitate access to water and land, effectively support local industries, connect communities, and cooperate with larger maritime hubs (Figure 1). Together, these small ports form an important spatial, social, and economic grouping that is under-researched (Carella et al., 2024) and in need of comprehensive planning and policy advice. This blog presents different perspectives on the challenges and opportunities of small ports by presenting five ongoing projects by PortCityFutures members that address key issues in small ports. These projects were presented during the poster presentation at the symposium (RE-) CONNECTING MARITIME-URBAN ECOSYSTEMS on 16-17 September, 2024. [...]

To date, the preservation techniques of heritage buildings in Indonesia are still limited to physical measurement, most of which are based on manual records. Consequently, lack of accuracy, cost and time consumption often lead to misinterpretation of crucial information during the decision-making process. This part includes physical amage (i.e., mold growth, flaking paint, water leaks), caused by condensation due to high relative humidity. Thanks to the development of advanced laser scanning technology, high-precision point cloud datasets can be obtained to conduct surface performance analysis. Furthermore, this study proposes an integrated computational method for detecting condensation risks in heritage buildings by making use of optical and thermal properties calculated from point cloud data. The proposed method specifically employs Blinn-Phong Bidirectional Reflectance Function (BRDF) model to calculate the distributed reflectance in a material based on the angle of incidence and material reflectance. Along with it, the point cloud measurement is also coupled with FLIR One Pro IR camera and HOBO data logger to analyze the thermal performances of the building surface. Ultimately, this study will provide architects with a better understanding regarding potential risks of condensation in the heritage building surface so that they can perform early detection tasks.

Ports are key nodes in the distribution of goods and people on a global scale. They link diverse territories and impact nearby cities and territories. Understanding the ways in which maritime flows shape territories on sea and land and using them to improve cities and landscapes in the short- and long-term is key to future sustainable development. Architects, planners and landscape designers can play a key role in this process; to do that, they first have to understand the role ports play in space, society and everyday life. Developing sustainable port city territories (Hein, 2023) requires keen awareness of intricate relationships regarding space and governance. In line with this premise, the Master Course Adaptive Strategies: Designing Scenarios for Port Cities, coordinated by Carola Hein and run by teachers Paolo De Martino and John Hanna at Delft University of Technology, focuses on educating architects, planners and landscape designers to understand the specific conditions of port city territories, including long-term developments and path dependencies.

Blue Papers was set up to connect academic and practical analysis of water, culture, heritage and sustainable development and provide concepts, methodologies and case studies to guide policymakers in developing value-based decisions and strategies. The first five issues of the journal brought together over 130 authors from academia, practice, private sector, major public institutions and NGOs. Their insights from multiple sectors and scientific fields – including policymaking, governance, water management, biology, urban planning, heritage and history – shed light on global and local dynamics, challenges and approaches to contemporary urgencies in the water sector and their impact on space, society and culture. The 85 articles so far published in Blue Papers have explored examples from 31 countries, highlighting positive and negative aspects of governance, historical processes and socio-cultural practices related to water.

Europe is a continent surrounded by water on three sides, with major seaports and metropolises along its coastlines. Each of these waters is different in terms of depth, water quality or role in global shipping, and their unique characteristics have influenced the planning of coastal and port city developments on their edges. Looking at Europe from the water allows us to study how people have adapted the spatial configuration of their port city territories to the characteristics of their neighbouring waters, and to identify similarities and differences in the development of port city territories on a single sea, across seas, rivers or river networks. We argue that such a historical perspective on planning offers decision-makers new insights into the complex territories at the water/land interface and the challenges for future planning in Europe and beyond. Mapping can help us overcome the limitations of historical boundaries and institutions that shape planning and act as a ‘gap finder’, identifying spatial, institutional or functional opportunities and challenges and where planning can be beneficial. In the context of Europe, we argue that the internal focus on nation states, national borders and European unification has distracted policy makers and stakeholders from a multi-scale and maritime perspective of the continent. Crossing borders, exploring territories from sea to land, highlights the unique role of seaports in shaping Europe, past, present and future. By exploring the conceptual and methodological underpinnings of the Port City Atlas, this presentation provides an insight into the role of mapping in planning history.

Green Shipping Corridors, initiated in 2021, demonstrate a growing awareness among port and shipping stakeholders that the oceans and seas are more than blank spaces for industrial processes that don’t find a place on land (Couling & Hein, 2018). Monitoring websites, like windy.com, visualize open access data, including on NO2 and SO2 air pollution. They highlight the continuity of air pollution along sea and land corridors, and reveal the densification of pollution in and around ports and along coasts. Green Shipping Corridors are thus a much-needed attempt to address maritime pollution and to create more sustainable transportation methods, both on land and at sea. Control of landside pollution is a task for national, regional and more local governance, but greening the seaside is much more difficult because of the mix at play of national jurisdiction zones and large areas under international law. Green Shipping Corridors and other practices for improving ocean health raise questions about how to embed these initiatives in meaningful international governance, controllable policies, and spatial planning that includes the sea. With the horizon of 2050, we need to clearly establish goals, timelines and impact indicators. What governance structures, tools, competitive incentives and control mechanisms do we need to green the sea? How will we assess the impact of these green corridors? […]

Heritage buildings are valuable assets that represent national cultural identity. Proper building maintenance is a major issue for preservation, as building monitoring aspects and preventive measures are often only taken after physical damage happens. In the context of Indonesian heritage buildings, high levels of humidity which may cause condensation and soil dampness are often overlooked. Early detection methods are urgently required to effectively detect potential risks of condensation. This study aims to investigate condensation risk for heritage building surfaces by calculating thermal properties (i.e., emissivity, albedo) and Blinn–Phong BRDF values through the integration of thermal imaging and 3D scanning techniques. This approach supports architects and conservators in making informed decisions to protect and maintain cultural heritage structures. The study also highlights gaps in current Indonesian regulations regarding moisture presence and condensation risk detection in heritage buildings.

Uncovering relationships between geospatial features and COVID-19 features is a comprehensive, confounding, cross-disciplinary and challenging topic, as the spread and effects of COVID-19 are related to many aspects of our lives, including socio-economic, cultural, and environmental features. Our research aims to provide an innovative data-driven method to uncover the relationships between the heterogeneous and cross-disciplinary geospatial features with COVID-19 features at the municipality scale in Germany. We exploit these relationships using supervised machine learning, explainable AI and spatial analysis in Germany from March 2020 to October 2021. First, we integrated multi-source data including social data, economic data, cultural data, air pollution data and COVID-19 features data into one spatiotemporally harmonised dataset. Second, we trained three machine learning models (a Support Vector Regressor, a Random Forest, and a Light Gradient Boosting Machine) on the integrated dataset to learn the relationships between the spatial features and the COVID-19 features. Third, we used Shapley Additive exPlanations (SHAP) to rank the relevance of each feature. After that, we illustrated the results by the visualised spatial differences within municipalities. The output delivers key information regarding the Covid hospitalisation rate with the control of NO2 concentration and education level in Germany with transferable methods.